Baltimore County Public Schools Superintendent Myriam Rogers made a promise she couldn’t keep.

During her first school year as head of Maryland’s third largest district she struck a deal with 20,000 employees to raise their salaries in each of the next three years.

The school board approved the pay raises in November 2023, winning Rogers praise from employees who’d been skeptical of her as a replacement for the former superintendent, who was her boss.

But there was a problem that has bedeviled the county ever since: Those pay raises — 1% the first year, 5% this year and 5% next year — didn’t come with a clear funding plan.

That’s something county government leadership had been sounding the alarm about in earlier years. Budget crunches at every level of government have made the raises even more untenable.

To salvage the $61 million in new raises, Rogers asked at the beginning of the year for $100 million more from the county for her proposed $2.9 billion budget. County Executive Kathy Klausmeier said no.

Four of the school system’s five unions agreed to the reduced raise offer, but the largest, the Teachers Association of Baltimore County, or TABCO, is holding out. A mediator is set to begin talks with the two sides on Tuesday.

Klausmeier’s predecessor, Johnny Olszewski Jr., now a congressman, celebrated Rogers’ three-year deal with the teachers. But he had earlier been critical of the school system for not developing a long-term plan for staff raises.

He didn’t make that same call for accountability, however, when it came to Rogers’ three-year deal. Olszewski said in a recent interview that he wasn’t sure what the funding plan was.

A representative from the school system and board Chair Jane Lichter declined to answer questions, both saying they didn’t want to talk before a new deal had been reached.

To better understand how Baltimore County schools arrived at this impasse, The Banner reviewed the public records for each year leading to this point, including a comparison of how raises have been handled.

2022: ‘Irresponsible’ budgeting

When teachers and staff amped up their calls for raises in 2022, system leaders said they wanted to comply, but the 2023 budget had already been approved by the county.

Darryl Williams was superintendent, with Rogers as the deputy, and Olszewski was county executive.

Williams said he would give employees a raise in August 2023 and would use $50 million of its surplus funds to do so.

Olszewski wasn’t happy with that approach, calling it fiscally irresponsible, since it would rely on one-time revenue. He asked school officials how they’d sustain the higher salaries in the coming years, and they replied, “that’s a good question,” Olszewski told The Banner at the time.

School board member Rod McMillion asked at an August 2022 board meeting: “The fact that we’re going to need so much money in [fiscal 2024], do you agree or feel that it’s crucial that we now start to look at ways to prepare for that internally?”

“Yes, that would probably be the prudent course,” responded Whit Tantleff, the school system’s director of budgeting and reporting.

As the new school year began that fall, Williams and Olszewski came up with a plan. Williams would pull about $30 million from the district’s surplus, and Olszewski would contribute $46 million in federal COVID-relief funds to pay for the raises. Still, it was a one-time solution.

The school system would have to find a way to trim its next budget to continue paying for the higher salaries.

And it wasn’t “typical budgeting practice,” but the county would return to the normal process moving forward, Olszewski said in September 2022.

2023: A historic deal

In January, Williams presented a $2.6 billion budget for the next fiscal year, and it included another raise for staff that would kick in the following school year. To pay for it, the former superintendent said he’d cut staff positions, reduce cellphone stipends and take advantage of money saved from teacher retirements.

Olszewski called that another “unrealistic” approach because Williams’ request for county government funds was far beyond what Olszewski offered schools at the beginning of the budget process. Williams defended the plan, saying it advanced equity and excellence.

That spring, there was another pricey new dynamic: The school system raised its starting salaries, making Baltimore County’s new teachers among the highest paid in the state. Rogers had just been named the new superintendent and would officially take over in July.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, teachers were working on a contract that would be negotiated with the school system in the fall.

The union and the district struck a deal Nov. 30 that would take effect July 1, 2024. In addition to speeding up how quickly new teachers earned more money, they would get three more years of pay raises.

Kelly Olds, the incoming president of the teachers union, said it was a “pretty historic outcome” that was also celebrated by school district and county leadership. At that point no one, including Olszewski, was raising questions publicly about how to pay for it.

2024: So far, so good

That still seemed to be the plan as last year began.

But Rogers was dealing with a challenging school budget. She made cuts to save $104 million even as federal funds were drying up and mandates from the state to pay for education reform initiatives were kicking in. Still, none of her cuts touched the raises promised in the contract.

Her budget process earned high praise from Olszewski, who called it “more open and accessible than ever before” — a stark difference from his review of Williams’ last budget.

All school employees received their 1% increase as planned on July 1.

“We took a little less in the first year because we were dealing with a fiscal cliff, grants expiring and were told that the financial outlook would be better in the out years,” Olds said.

2025: It all falls apart

This year brought another difficult budget season. Challenges included a rising gas and electric bill — residential ratepayers can relate — and the most expensive item, those promised 5% raises, which would cost $61 million.

Cuts had to be made again, including 487 education positions, the county government reported in May. The number of position cuts was not revealed in the school system’s budget, and school officials have not provided a detailed list of them.

In any event, it wasn’t enough.

So Rogers made a big ask of the county government: $100 million more than what the county gave the schools last year.

Klausmeier made it clear in February that she wasn’t coughing up that kind of cash. She gave the district $29 million, or 3.5% more, instead.

A couple weeks later, the school board approved Rogers’ more ambitious, yet unfunded, budget proposal anyway, leaving the school system to figure out how to make up for the $38 million difference.

In April, Rogers announced she would be renegotiating the salary raises, frustrating staff who were once relieved to know how much they’d be making in the future. Not knowing that, Olds said, pushes teachers to look elsewhere for jobs.

The school system pitched an alternative solution: delay the 5% salary increase until January 2026, leaving staff with the year-one salaries for an extra six months. The funding source for it will include more money from the one-time surplus.

TABCO announced June 4 that they entered the impasse process with the school system, an “unprecedented” move over salary renegotiations, according to Olds, who has been on the contract negotiations team for nearly a decade.

It’s hard to predict the outcome of mediation, Olds said.

“The financial accountability of your organization is one of your main responsibilities,” said Cindy Sexton during her last address to the board as the head of the teachers union on June 10. “Were questions asked when you were shown the three-year agreement? What about how it will be funded?”

Rogers later voiced her appreciation for the educators and explained the various difficult budget decisions that had to be made.

“We have not only requested the funding that was necessary,” she said, “but I have made requests several times following that and I do know that other members of the community have requested additional funds several times.”

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.