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Councilmember seeks one-time use of excess surplus for school deferred maintenance in CB20
Summary
Councilmember introduced CB20 to direct a portion of the county's unassigned fund balance toward school deferred maintenance; the work session discussion focused on accounting categories, timing, and whether the request would change ordinary budget and board-of-education processes.
Councilmember introduced CB20 at the Howard County Council work session as a proposal to allocate some portion of the county's unassigned fund balance toward deferred capital maintenance needs of the public schools.
The sponsor framed the bill as a targeted, one-year measure to capture excess surplus already shown in the county's audited financial statements and direct it to school deferred-maintenance projects that the schools and the council have identified as high priority. The sponsoring member pointed to the FY24 audited general-fund balance sheet showing an "unassigned" balance that staff and auditors report as available for one-time uses and asked the council to consider $36.5 million of that balance for school maintenance needs.
Finance staff and the county's external-audit representative explained how fund-balance accounting and the charter…
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