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Board of Education seeks negotiated step increases and staffing additions; commissioners limit FY18 to MOE for now
Summary
Superintendent and Board of Education representatives described a multi-part FY18 request that included a negotiated step program and 45.5 additional full-time equivalents; commissioners accepted MOE funding for FY18 and urged the district to prioritize positions and provide details for future years.
Representatives of the St. Mary’s County Board of Education briefed county commissioners March 14 on their FY18 funding request, which includes funding for a negotiated step increase and a package of additional positions the district says it needs to cover enrollment growth and student-support services.
Board officials explained the cost of a full step cycle across certificated and support units would be roughly $3.2 million before offsets. The board said it applied approximately $1.5 million in a one-time stipend in FY17 and projected attrition and reassignments would reduce the net FY18 impact to about $813,751 for instructional salaries. The superintendent and board staff also described a request that would add 45.5 full-time-equivalent (FTE) positions across instructional, student-support and facilities lines; the county share of those additions was shown on the board’s worksheet as approximately $1,339,052.
Board leaders itemized several categories behind the staffing request: additional elementary and secondary teacher positions to address classes over size thresholds; paraeducators and specialized staff (school psychologists and ESOL teachers) for students with high needs; central-office instructional resource teacher support for mentoring and induction; and building/facilities positions including HVAC and maintenance support and safety/security staff for middle and high schools.
Commissioners asked for clarifications about counts and methods used to calculate positions; they emphasized that maintenance-of-effort (MOE) obligations and negotiated step increases are a priority, but that the full package of new positions would have to be prioritized across future budgets. After discussion, commissioners signaled they would treat the school system’s FY18 request as MOE for this round, which funds the district’s step obligations and recurring baseline but does not automatically fund every new position the board requested. Commissioners and board representatives agreed to continue discussions about which positions to fund now and which to phase in, and the board committed to provide additional reconciliation and justification for the requested FTEs at follow-up meetings.
The board’s representatives also noted projected enrollment increases (190 additional students in the current count, with a projected additional 130 students in the next year) and said that certain costs — notably ongoing health-care costs and federal/state funding mixes — affect how much additional local funding is required in future years.
