Cutting school spending is a hot potato these days. Anne Arundel County school Superintendent Carol S. Parham proposed a $437.7 million operating budget that eliminated 21 administrative positions, cut a popular water safety class and eliminated adult education, then tossed the plan to the school board.
The board trimmed another $5 million by cutting money for computers, transportation, employee health insurance and retirement benefits, then passed it on to County Executive John G. Gary. Anne Arundel's budget gurus say the $432.9 million spending plan is still about $10 million more than the county can afford, and the executive or County Council will have to make more cuts.
Welcome to the realities of living within the confines of a voter-imposed property tax cap.
Schools already account for more than half of the county's budget. The $422 million the analysts say the county can afford is the minimum needed to provide students with the same services they now receive. That leaves little for teacher pay raises or new initiatives, unless existing programs are curbed.
None of the choices for paring down this budget is attractive. Dr. Parham tried to cut a $100,000 water safety program and $108,000 for adult basic education, but created such an uproar in the process that the board restored those programs. The board instead cut half of the $7 million Dr. Parham wanted for the Advanced School Automation Program. She planned to give the high schools 146 additional computer work stations; the board voted to give them 36.
The board made the right decisions by restoring the adult education and drown-proofing programs and reducing the investment in the unproven computer system. But the board should have gone further and pared this budget to size rather than hope that the County Council would somehow find the extra money. This council is already testy over the news that school officials underestimated the cost of upgrading school media centers by some $500,000 and are running a $3 million deficit in the current budget.
Because the school board lacked the nerve to make the hard decisions, these choices now will be made by the executive and council members who know politics, not education policy.