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Superintendent asks Charles County commissioners for $430,000 in one-time school safety funding
Summary
Charles County Public Schools Superintendent Maria Navarro asked the Board of Commissioners to authorize a one-time $430,000 package for school safety: $300,000 for mobile weapons-detection technology, $80,000 to expand indoor detection, and $50,000 for community and student pilot programming. The board authorized a letter to the state seeking an MOE exclusion to permit the funding, with commissioners debating the $50,000 pilot.
Maria Navarro, superintendent of Charles County Public Schools, asked the Board of County Commissioners on May 19 for a one-time, nonrecurring package totaling $430,000 to boost safety across the district. Navarro said the request is "separate from our current operating budget request this year" and broke the total into $300,000 for mobile weapons-detection technology, about $80,000 to expand existing indoor gun-detection programs, and $50,000 for community- and student-focused pilot programming.
Navarro told commissioners the request would be submitted as a maintenance-of-effort (MOE) exclusion to the Maryland State Department of Education: if the state approves the exclusion, the county and school board would then take any required budget adjustments. "This request that we have for you is outside our normal funding," Navarro said, explaining the MOE-exclusion process and promising to brief the board in August on milestones, metrics and how pilot programs would be evaluated.
Commissioners supported most elements of the package but debated the $50,000 pilot. One commissioner said the pilot money likely would involve nonprofit partners and asked for more detail and oversight before committing those funds. Navarro said the pilot funds would be used to test community-based prevention and violence-interruption programs and that some vendors would not be nonprofits; she proposed coordinating the pilots with sheriff's office and state's attorney staff and presenting more specific plans when the board reconvenes.
The board voted to grant the county commissioner president authority to sign and submit the MOE-exclusion request to MSDE so the state can determine whether to approve the nonrecurring funding; the transcript records the motion passing despite at least one commissioner expressing reservations about the $50,000 pilot. Navarro said she will return with additional detail and that the school system will coordinate community partners and metrics for any pilot work.
The next procedural step recorded in the meeting was the commissioners' authorization for the county's submission of the MOE-exclusion request to the state; any actual budget adjustment and spending would follow only if the state approves the exclusion and the commissioners subsequently adopt a funding amendment.
