Board presses AIB issues: CCPS highlights AIB monitoring, career ladder approval and concerns about 75/25 minimum school funding implementation
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Summary
CCPS told the AIB it has made progress on the Blueprint goals — including career ladder approval and pre‑K gains — but urged the AIB to address significant administrative burdens and unintended effects from the new 75/25 school‑level funding reporting requirement.
Chris Miller, CCPS coordinator for the Blueprint implementation, reported Nov. 4 on a recent monitoring meeting with Maryland's Accountability and Implementation Board (AIB). The district highlighted pre‑K expansion and quality improvements, new human‑capital programs including a faculty career ladder that the AIB accepted, and a state‑approved comprehensive math plan.
Miller and other district leaders told the AIB that the most time‑consuming and administratively burdensome Blueprint requirement is the new minimum‑school‑funding accounting structure (commonly referred to as 75/25), which requires district expenditures to be reported at the school level across many funding categories. Miller explained that this change transforms routine purchasing and budgeting processes into school‑by‑school accounting tasks, increasing workload in finance departments and complicating reporting when school populations change due to redistricting. She said the district will seek clarifications and potential waiver pathways when a school cannot meet a school‑level minimum due to sudden enrollment or staffing changes.
Board members and Miller urged the AIB to help identify practical approaches and flexibility, citing unintended consequences: significant staff time to split invoices and code transactions to individual schools, the need for additional administrative capacity at smaller schools and potential penalties if preliminary reports do not match state expectations. The AIB indicated it was hearing similar feedback from other LEAs and planned to consider options at upcoming meetings.
Superintendent Navarro and board members described the issue as a top priority for state advocacy: they called for close AIB attention to implementation details and for MSDE to coordinate on reasonable deadlines and waivers where appropriate, especially given the broader fiscal pressures facing many systems.
