The following is a statement offered to the public at the May Board of Education meeting.
The board recognizes that the budget outlook in QACPS is concerning and challenging at this time. Blueprint requirements, the funding cliff of federal COVID grants ending, and the rising cost of doing business due to inflation are causing extreme budgetary challenges across the state and in Queen Anne’s County. We are doing our best to work within our current projected revenue from the state and county government. We are increasing budget lines where we need to so that we can meet these challenges, specifically the Blueprint mandates, and while doing that, we project a $5.8 million-dollar shortfall in FY2025. This is after our county government is anticipating giving us approximately 7% over maintenance of effort (MOE). To meet Blueprint requirements and balance the budget, we will eliminate approximately 53 positions to save $5.3 million in salaries and put a freeze on our $500,000 line item for new textbooks in FY25.
The following are some of the reasons why these cuts will be necessary. First, inflation and the rising cost of doing business is a factor, but small in overall total impact. Insurance costs are rising at a rate of 6-8% per year. For Pillar 1, the Pre-K expansion grants allow us to set up classrooms and staff them initially, but the local budget needs to support them in subsequent years. In Pillar 2, increasing the starting teacher salary to $60,000 by July 1, 2026 is currently the costliest mandate. Compared to FY24, our starting teacher salary needs to increase by 16.8% in FY27 to meet this mandate. Salaries are subject to collective bargaining and it is challenging to meet this mandate, while being fair to our experienced certificated staff in the same bargaining unit, and while also keeping in mind salary increases for our other four bargaining units who are not mentioned in the Blueprint. We have a roughly $3.7 million placeholder for salary enhancements (salary and associated fixed costs) in FY25 alone. Pillar 3 includes providing additional opportunities for dual enrollment. This underfunded mandate will be significantly over budget for the 2023-24 school year. As of today, our dual enrollment cost is estimated to be around $360,000 with a state share of only $200,308. In Pillar 4, we are bringing six currently grant funded positions, 4 multilingual teachers (ML) and 2 ML support staff, into the local operating budget. This will require approximately $578,000 additionally in our local operating budget in FY25 and beyond.
The elimination of 53 positions will be felt across the district. Fortunately, we expect to eliminate the positions through attrition, both resignations and retirements. In some cases, staff will need to shift positions and location. Class sizes will increase as a result of this decision. Additionally, we have math and reading specialists in our elementary and middle schools. Unless funding is increased, these positions are at risk of being eliminated. It is important to understand, these individuals will still have a position in QACPS, it will just be in a different assignment. This will cause an unfortunate impact to students as these positions help to provide interventions to our struggling learners.
Many people are questioning the capital improvements going on within the district asking why that money is not being diverted to fill the 5.8 million dollar gap. Unfortunately, capital funds are completely different from operating costs. Capital funds come from bonded money that is paid back over many years. These funds are to be used on one time costs that are not recurring. Improvement projects like the new roof on KIHS fall under capital funds. The central office is being built with county capital funds and could not be used in our operating budget.
We will continue to work with our county government, and stakeholders to implement the Blueprint in Queen Anne’s County Public Schools and build a budget that meets students needs within the restraints of funding.
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