Montgomery County panel hears MCPS request emphasizing special education, staffing and building maintenance

The Montgomery County Council Education & Culture Committee received an overview of the Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) FY26 operating budget request on the committee’s first of four work sessions, with board and system leaders urging investment to stabilize staffing, student supports and building maintenance.

"This is the first of 4 E and C set work sessions on the board of education's requested FY 26 budget, operating budget for MCPS," Chair Gewondo said at the start of the meeting. Board President Julie Yang said the request is intended to keep the system running and to address long‑standing needs. "This budget, for 1, it will keep our school system running," Yang said.

The superintendent framed the request as a "broccoli" budget — a set of necessary fixes instead of an array of new initiatives. "We have relatively flat enrollment changes," Superintendent Dr. Taylor said, "but the makeup of our student population is changing — students with disabilities and emergent multilingual learners are growing and need more resources." Taylor also highlighted academic performance gaps: "Just over half of our students meeting state proficiency for literacy" and "just a third of our students are meeting state proficiency in mathematics." Those shortfalls, he said, drive a portion of the funding ask.

Key numbers and priorities cited by MCPS staff and county staff in the meeting packet include: - Board of Education request: $284,000,000 additional county contribution for FY26 (as presented to the committee). - County Executive recommendation: $250,000,000 additional county contribution in the executive’s proposed budget. - Spending Affordability Guideline (SAG): $3,124,200,000 for MCPS tax‑supported funds; the board request exceeds the SAG by approximately $290,000,000 and the executive recommendation exceeds the SAG by roughly $256,000,000. - Central staffing and regionalization: MCPS plans to reconfigure central office staff into 13 regional teams to provide direct support to schools rather than centralized support, focused on special education, emergent multilingual learners, literacy and math. - Special education staffing: the budget includes funding for roughly 689 special education positions, about 500 of which are paraprofessional roles; many of those paraprofessional positions would be converted from temporary/part‑time to full‑time to reduce turnover and meet previously published staffing ratios. - Health benefits and solvency: MCPS and employee associations negotiated plan and employee cost‑share changes that staff estimate will generate roughly $30,000,000 in savings over multi‑year phasing; MCPS is also proposing an approximately $40,000,000 contribution to help return the health benefits fund toward solvency.

System finance staff said they have already incorporated two state developments into the request: a state pension shift that staff estimate will cost MCPS about $20,000,000, and a proposed reduction in the state reimbursement rate for nonpublic special education placements. "The governor recommended that that be decreased to a 60% reimbursement for FY '26," Chief Financial Officer Yvonne Alfonso Windsor said; staff estimated that cut would cost MCPS about $3.6 million in FY26 and rise to an estimated $7.6 million when the reimbursement falls to 50 percent in a later year under the governor’s proposal.

MCPS leaders emphasized building maintenance and facilities as a major short‑term need. The superintendent described using a PayGo major maintenance approach: deploy teams (plumber, HVAC, electrician, carpenter and truck) to clear backlogged work orders and keep schools out of capital improvement program (CIP) lists. "We have a tremendous work order backlog," the superintendent said, and noted that maintenance staff levels have not kept pace with millions of added square feet in the MCPS portfolio.

Other discretionary and policy items discussed included differentiated per‑school materials funding (an "equity" model that raises the per‑school materials allocation above the longstanding per‑student amounts), expansion of early childhood tied to the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future (28 classrooms in the system’s current projection), an enhanced security footprint, and modest investments in virtual programming and career‑ready certificates for students aging out of the system.

Committee members and council staff pressed MCPS on implementation and measurement: how the regional teams will tangibly support principals and teachers, how the system will fill the newly funded positions, and how the district will measure progress (Superintendent Taylor said student academic performance will be the key metric). Several council members urged MCPS to prepare alternate budget scenarios and priority tradeoffs in light of uncertain county and state revenues and the risk of an economic downturn.

On fiscal controls and reserves, MCPS staff said the projected FY25 unassigned fund balance is approximately $9,000,000 after accounting for prior allocations. System leaders described internal controls enacted earlier in the fiscal year to avoid a projected deficit and said they are monitoring cash flow closely.

No formal committee votes were recorded in the session. Committee members scheduled follow‑up work sessions: a session focused on core academics and operations including special education and multilingual learners, another on school climate, safety and student supports, and a final session to refine recommendations and submit a funding recommendation to the full council.

The committee paused the work session for spring break and will continue budget deliberations at the April 23 and April 30 sessions, according to the meeting schedule. The meeting adjourned after the overview and initial round of questions.