An initial vote that would have saved the jobs of 18 St. Mary’s County teachers failed on Tuesday on a tie 2-2 vote. Commissioner Larry Jarboe made the motion to use $1.3 million of the available $1.9 million public hearing reserve for the school board budget to avert the proposed layoffs. Commissioner President Francis “Jack” Russell and Commissioner Todd Morgan voted against the motion that was seconded by Commissioner Dan Morris.
Russell said he was not ready to vote on the motion with the first of three budget work sessions just beginning. And, Acting County Administrator Sue Sabo noted that the school board had yet to present the commissioners with their final budget proposal. That is expected to be delivered to the commissioners on Wednesday after the school board meeting that morning.
The tie vote came in the absence of Commissioner Cindy Jones, who has not attended a meeting in a more than a month following her reported “attempted suicide” and did not attend the budget public hearing. She is expected to return to the table for next Monday’s second budget work session.
The vote came after a presentation to the commissioners by School Superintendent Dr. Michael Martirano. He emphasized that really 22 teacher positions are at stake. Eighteen teachers were given pink slips on May 1 but an additional four teachers were told they could slide into other vacant positions that were not exactly a perfect fit for them. Martirano said he wanted to save all 22 positions to avoid any class size increases.
Martirano was asked during the meeting why the school board didn’t use their fund balancer for the teachers. He said that the teachers were a recurring cost that shouldn’t be taken care of with a fund balance. “It’s a recurring cost that needs to be dealt with now,” he said, echoing the commissioners’ philosophy that was stated in their budget document presented at the public hearing.
The superintendent emphasize that teachers were not getting a cost-of-living increase, but they were getting salary increases in June that were negotiated earlier; that impact on next fiscal year’s budget would be $3 million. “That was staggered from previous year’s negotiations,” he said. The teachers and school board are still in negotiations over other issues, including the amount of furlough days.
Morris wondered why the school system couldn’t cut the number of half day sessions to save energy. Martirano emphasized that the state requires students attend school for 180 days and any change would have to be done state wide. “It would take a complete overhaul of how we do business,” he said. He did say that othe
