CENTREVILLE — A “perfect storm” of funding running dry, price increases and state mandates have Queen Anne’s County Public Schools Board of Education now facing position eliminations as it discussed the draft FY25 budget April 10.
The Queen Anne’s County Board of Education approved the draft budget of approximately 116 million for the 2024-2025 school year — looking at an elimination of positions tied into grants as well as 53 locally funded positions, according to Superintendent Patricia Saelens.
Budget constraints, rising costs for utilities, health insurance and other necessary line items, along with the end of several state and federal grants and working to meet the requirements of the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future will require the Board to eliminate a number of positions throughout the district.
“Unfortunately, how we’re getting to that bottom line is position elimination,” Saelens said.
Although fully supportive of the Blueprint for its intentions and positive impacts on expanding the district’s prekindergarten program, QACPS is struggling with underfunded mandates dictated by the Blueprint law, according to Matthew Kibler, assistant superintendent.
For FY25, the state is only increasing their support to the Queen Anne’s County school district by about 1 million. Not nearly enough to make up for these new mandates.
As an example, Kibler specified the $1 million increase is across all state funding categories, but it also includes a new category for QACPS, Community Schools, and will require the district to allocate $273,805 to Sudlersville Elementary School.
Another shortfall projected is the College and Career (CCR) state funding. For this current school year the state provided $200,308, but for FY25 only $74,095 is alloted, Kibler said.
However, the county is hoping to increase their support by nearly 6 million. According to the draft budget presented by Chief Financial Officer Whitney Gast, the Queen Anne’s County Commissioners have a placeholder of about $5 million over the required Maintenance of Effort in their proposed FY25 budget.
That brings the total county contribution to about 73.8 million dollars.
Maintenance of Effort (MOE) is a government requirement that funds programs at a certain level, usually the same funding level as in the current or a prior year, in order to receive state funding; and is based in part on a formula that looks at student enrollment.
A “significant” enrollment increase of 62 students, raised that Maintenance of Effort number higher than last year’s, Saelens noted.
“While this budget placeholder isn’t exactly what we need to move forward and do everything that we did this past year, I think that it’s very, very reasonable in the aspect that we sit at the table with all different partners of this community and a 7% increase is significant,” she said of the county’s contribution.
She also pointed out the contributions the county makes in addition to the non budget specific support as it extends to libraries, parks and recreation, school resource officers and EMS, among others.
Still the budget does not have a lot of wiggle room in regard to expenses, Saelens said, noting regular aspects of the budget the district does not have any choice on, including workman’s compensation, organization dues and keeping the lights and heat on.
“That’s why unfortunately, to get to that bottomline, to balance that budget, we have to have those position eliminations, “ she reiterated.
Saelens noted the budget’s health insurance rate placeholder is $3.3 million because QACPS expects a $6 to 8 million increase, a number that was underestimated for this current school year.
In another effort to balance the budget, Kibler said they elected to purchase no new textbooks for the upcoming year for a budget decrease of half a million dollars.
“That’s going to hurt and we can’t do that every year but we’re trying to do it one year to help out with the position elimination,” he said.
Conserving electricity and suggestions from the state on how to save money and where to direct funding are well and good, but do not address overlying issues, board member Richard Smith said.
“When the state only comes up with a million dollars more, it’s kind of disheartening,” Smith said.
This budget also had to take into account adjustments made following COVID rolling averages, Smith said. Opportunities and positions brought on through COVID relief funding are no longer available. “It was a great thing to have, but once you don’t have it funded, there’s no way we can do it.”
Board President Helen Bennett gave a kudos to the financial department for their hard work and acknowledged the ‘perfect storm” faced by the district .
“Between everything, it’s quite amazing that we have come up with the budget that we have,” Bennett said.
The board has been in conversation and has met in open sessions to share budget progress with the Queen Anne’s County Commissioners, according to Saelens.
The commissioners now move forward with three public budget hearings set for May before finalizing their budget.
Everyone is encouraged to participate as the budget moves forward, Saelens said.
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