A tax cap is depriving Anne Arundel County schools of millions of dollars needed for new middle and high school space to handle an expected population boom and, Board of Education members say, it is up to them and other officials to alert residents to the problem.
Last week, the eight-member school board reviewed a report from an independent consulting firm that recommends a $1.2 million plan to redistrict 3,480 students and expand or modernize several high and middle schools.
"The redistricting and additions scenario makes a lot of sense," said board President Carlesa R. Finney. "But it costs money. So, the choice is have no money and redistrict everyone, causing a lot of disruption -- or get the money and do the combination of redistricting and adding on to the schools."
Getting the money to improve schools -- hiring more teachers, reducing a maintenance and repair bill that is approaching $500 million, or making room for enrollment growth -- is a problem in a county with a tax cap that limits new property-tax revenue to $20 million to $30 million this year, county officials say.
While the Board of Education has asked the County Council and County Executive Janet S. Owens for a $56 million increase in its budget this year, Owens has warned the board it is not likely to receive even close to that amount.
Owens, who campaigned in the November election largely on a promise to improve county schools, has begun issuing regular warnings about the tax cap.
"This tax cap is really a problem," she said during a breakfast meeting with county business leaders at Baltimore-Washington International Airport last week. "Everything is booming, and I don't have any money."
On Wednesday, she delivered a similar message to state legislators considering a tax cut for Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. and other utilities in the state. It is estimated the tax break would cost the county $2.5 million a year in revenue -- or the equivalent of the salaries for 62 new teachers.
"The county needs all the revenue it can get," Owens said during a state Budget and Taxation Committee hearing in Annapolis.
Finney and other board members say that residents must realize that providing a quality public school education is not cheap and that they will get what they pay for.
"People who think we can't do it without lifting the tax cap," Finney said, "should organize a grass-roots effort like the one done by the group that thought we needed the tax cap. And they are not going to do that unless we as a board educate the public about the situation we are in."
Finney said she and the board will talk in coming weeks about ways to do this.
"We have an obligation to let people know what it will take to accomplish all of this," said board member Vaughn Brown. "The public can let the elected officers know what they want to do about it. Can the county afford to do all of this? The public has to decide that. Or they can decide that they are satisfied to not have all the services that the students need."
The three-volume report by the SHW Group Inc. of Beltsville, shows that about 20,229 students attend class in 12 high schools. By 2007, that figure is expected to increase to 23,735 and then drop off 10 years later to 21,295.
About 17,058 students attend the county's 18 middle schools, and enrollment is expected to increase to 19,090 by 2007 and then drop slightly to 19,040 by the 2017 school year.
Although the report provided the board with several options for handling population growth, the consultants recommended shifting 2,350 middle school students and 1,130 high school students to other county schools and building additions to Crofton and Southern middle schools as well as to Arundel and Northeast high schools.
Pub Date: 3/08/99