Recapping County Exec's K-12 Budget

The K-12 (kindergarten through 12th grade) budget produced last week by County Executive Rushern L. Baker III comes up $8 million shy of Superintendent William R. Hite Jr.’s $1.604 billion version, adopted last month by the Board of Education.

While Hite and school board members had hoped to see the county contribute some $621 million in school spending next year, Baker’s fiscal 2012 budget provides $613 million from the county—creating the $8 million disparity. Even so, Hite lauded Baker’s proposed budget through a March 14 press release.

“I thank the County Executive for his support of education funding and for making a decision which will help sustain our education reform,” Hite is quoted as saying.

While Baker’s nearly $1.6 billion budget contains $14 million more in county K-12 spending over the current 2011 cycle, it also represents a 1.9 percent decrease in overall spending on education compared to what the county approved last year.   

“The overall K-12 budget is a decrease from 2011,” Thomas Himler, the county’s budget director, wrote in an email Monday. “However, the decrease is due to funding outside of the (County Executive’s) control.” Himler was referring to a $71 million shortfall in federal-stimulus dollars the county’s school system faces next year. 

Other financial gaps include fewer tax revenues associated with sinking home values in the county. In fact, the county's property-tax revenues look to drop by $14 million over estimated revenues in 2011, according to budget documents.

Some officials have also pointed to the school system’s shrinking base of students, which, under a 2002 bill called the Thornton Formula, impacts how much K-12 cash the state divvies out to each of its 24 jurisdictions. Based on next year's pre-K through 12th grade enrollment figure of 125,733, the county will have lost nearly 4,000 students since 2009.

Compounding matters is Gov. Martin O’Malley’s own $32 billion budget, which involves reductions in the Thorton Formula and may cost Prince George’s County between $16 and $21 million.

Yet the verdict is still out on how Maryland’s House and Senate will handle O’Malley’s cuts in education. Early signs from the House Appropriations Committee, which approved O'Malleys budget with changes last week, suggest Maryland’s schools may be largely spared through fees and cuts outside education.

As of now, the state makes up 54 percent of Baker’s nearly $1.6 billion budget, followed by the county’s 38.4 percent stake. Federal sources, meanwhile, comprise about seven percent of the county executive’s budget.