Supporters of increased education funding in the St. Mary’s County FY ’12 budget made a full court press at the commissioners’ budget hearing Tuesday night at Great Mills High School. Speaker after speaker stepped to the microphone to support the paraprofessionals and un-tenured school teachers who are threatened with being fired if the budget passes at the proposed level.
The proposed budget has at least an almost $2 million cushion – money set aside to be allocated between now and the budget submission deadline of May 31. School Superintendent Dr. Michael Martirano, with the school board members standing behind him, pressed the commissioners to allocate at least $1.392 million of that sum to education to avert the layoffs and four furlough days for all employees. Martirano also asked for an open dialogue on allocation of undesignated surpluses in both the county and school board budgets.
The commissioners say they have a $12 million fund balance, although several speakers charged that the amount is even higher. In the budget message contained in the handout at the public hearing, the commissioners say, “It is tempting to use fund balance for recurring costs, and hope for a much improved picture next year. But this is not a short term problem. State allocations like $7 million in highway user funds are gone. If anything there will be more costs shifted by the State, because they still have to solve their structural imbalance. We don’t intend to create such a structural imbalance here” If any of that fund balance is used it will be used for non-recurring items, the commissioners insist.
In all, more than 80 people from the auditorium spoke during the five-hour hearing. The bulk spoke on the education budget, with many being parents or teacher/parents. They talked about their children, often naming them and telling stories about them, and how their lives were affected from as early as pre-K by the teachers and paraprofessional who went out of their way to help them through difficulties such as learning disabilities or health issues. They said they were fearful about the effect on the school system if they weren’t there any longer.
Madison Morgan, a third-grade teacher, talked about how the extra support was helping three students in her school and people in the audience held up pictures of those students as she was speaking. “Schools are at the heart of any community, she said. “Thi
