Board of Education requests $3.1 million to fund negotiated agreement; commissioners debate trade-offs and reserves

The St. Mary's County Board of Education told county commissioners on May 6 that $3.1 million is the “go/no-go” number needed to meet a negotiated compensation agreement for the coming fiscal year.

Tammy McCourt, a school finance official, and Dr. Smith, a senior school system official, described budget adjustments the school system has made to reduce its original request from $5.4 million to $3.1 million. McCourt said the system reduced staffing assumptions, secured lower-than-expected health insurance increases (including negotiated reductions in a stop-loss component), and planned other structural changes; Dr. Smith said the $3.1 million would allow the district to meet the negotiated agreement as presented to the county.

School officials told commissioners they had identified roughly 15–17 positions as reductions in the adopted budget (a combination of administrative, intermediate response team and teacher positions) and characterized some positions as potentially temporary or subject to “ramp” reinstatement if funding returns. Officials also said enrollment has declined by about 300 students this year — a factor that affects staffing and funding decisions.

Commissioners probed the school’s assumptions, asked for line-item detail and debated whether to use fund balance or lower the county’s commissioner's reserve to free funds. Several commissioners said they were willing to reallocate one-time funds (fund balance) and to consider reductions to the commissioner's reserve; others urged caution, citing recent unexpected expenses (such as snow-event costs) and the need to maintain contingency reserves.

Dr. Smith described the wider fiscal context for the school system, saying the school system has been working to reduce the request from $5.5 million to $3.1 million and that the $3.1 million covers compensation for approximately 2,200 employees who serve about 17,000 students; he warned that if the county cannot provide the $3.1 million, the school board may need to reopen negotiated agreements or consider additional cuts.

Commissioners did not adopt a final binding appropriation at the session. They discussed several options — restoring some fund balance for one-time items, a possible temporary reclassification of transit fare revenue, pilot funding for expanded transit service, and a range of smaller reallocations — and asked staff to model trade-offs and return with final budget figures at the next budget work session.