Howard County’s school system is getting only about a third of the new money it asked for from the county under the current budget proposal.

Now, educators, parents, residents and others are fighting to get the County Council to provide additional funding to stave off program and staff cuts.

Many turned out at a public hearing Wednesday night to voice concerns about the funding gap.

Although the Board of Education asked the county for $107.3 million more than what the county is legally required to contribute, County Executive Calvin Ball released a budget that provides just $39 million in new funds and $6.7 million for educator pensions.

Ball stressed that the county is facing “extraordinary fiscal headwinds” at the federal and state level. But school leaders said they almost certainly will have to impose unpopular spending cuts if the council doesn’t come up with more money.

“The budget gap we’re facing again this year, it’s not about jobs, it’s not about adults, it’s not about programs. It’s about children who don’t get the rich educational opportunities they deserve if you don’t restore the budget to the level that the school system asked for,” said Kelly Klinefelter Lee, a parent who teaches in the county schools and leads the Howard Progressive Project.

Here are some things to know:

County schools facing cuts

Ball’s budget would fund about $800 million of the $1.26 billion budget approved by the school board.

While the gap between the school board’s request and Ball’s recommendation is just over $68 million in new dollars, school officials stress they would need to cut $29.3 million to balance their budget and maintain funding commitments for existing services.

“There is no good solution to overcoming a $29.3 million funding deficit,” Brian Hull, the school system‘s chief financial officer, told the council Wednesday night.

Existing service commitments include special education contract obligations, transportation contracts and legal mandates tied to the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, the statewide education reform plan.

“We once again find ourselves engaged in a painful process to balance the operating budget,” Superintendent Bill Barnes said at a school board work session Tuesday night.

Barnes said the budget season is “going to cause significant anxiety and unease among our students, staff and community members” at a time when morale across the school system is low and tired staffers are approaching the end of the school year.

Next week, Barnes plans to present “several detailed scenarios” for balancing the budget to the school board. These “will include undesirable but potentially necessary strategies,” including class size increases, Barnes said.

County schools officials engaged in difficult budget conversations last year to close a budget gap that topped $100 million.

They eyed class size increases then, too, as well as cuts to central office staff and various programs (elementary school music, gifted and talented programs, and enrichments programs). Funding ultimately was restored for some of these programs.

“Unfortunately, we’re just going to have to talk about all of those things and even more things again this budget season,” said Barnes, who became permanent superintendent in July after serving in an acting capacity in early 2024.

School board member Jacky McCoy stressed to community members that while they may see their budget wants “as the non-negotiable, the bottom line is our children need to be able to read, do math and write.

“Everything else is added,” McCoy said.

Without more county funding, the school board has to figure out what can be left out.

“We can’t fund everything,” school board member Jen Mallo said at Tuesday’s work session. “So what are the tradeoffs? What are we willing to give up?”

Community to council: Fully fund the schools

At Wednesday’s public hearing, teachers, parents and school system staff pressed the county council to fully fund the school board’s budget request.

Laurie Chin, a school system speech-language pathologist whose children attend county schools, voiced support “for appropriate and aggressive funding for public education.”

“Public schools are under attack in our country, from the quiet shifting of public money to private schools through voucher programs to the outright attempt to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education by the current executive branch,” Chin said.

The council, she said, is in a unique position to calm community worries and send a message to families that they value their children and will invest in the educators and staff.

PTA Council of Howard County President Terri Marcus agreed.

“It is very discouraging to have to be here once again with our hands out asking for money, especially when I think we all started off the year feeling kind of hopeful because we finally had the school board submit a budget that more truly reflects what the actual needs of the school system are,” Marcus said.

What’s next?

The school board is scheduled to approve its operating budget on May 22, a day after the county council approves the county operating budget.

In the meantime, there will be a marathon of work sessions and a few more opportunities for people to speak up. The next public hearing is at 7 p.m. Thursday in the board of education’s board room.

The county council then has an education budget work session on Monday May 5 and the school board has one scheduled for Wednesday May 7. Community members also can send written comments to the council and school board.

“We know you’re going to tell us what you value most and we will listen, but also tell us things we might not have thought of before, because we need to hear them,” Mallo said.