School board OKs $390.7 million budget for next year
After several rounds of yo-yo budgeting, the Howard County Board of Education approved a final spending plan May 31 for next fiscal year that, at $390.7 million, is $13 million more than this year's operating budget. Board members had requested $398 million to fund programs, services and payrolls next year, but settled for a budget that is about $7 million less. To compensate, textbooks will not be upgraded, fewer custodians will be hired and vacant teaching positions will stay that way a little longer.
"These are reductions to the [operating budget] request," Superintendent John R. O'Rourke said. "These are not cuts in [existing] programs."
Plan to condemn land for park is submitted
Frustrated after years of trying to acquire land for a 27-acre community park in North Laurel, Howard County officials submitted five resolutions to the County Council on Monday night that represent the ultimate step - condemnation.
Going to court for parkland is extremely rare in Howard, said Barbara Cook, the county solicitor. Public Works officials say it has happened at least twice - in 1988 for land along the Patuxent River and about a decade ago for Rockburn Park in Elkridge.
County officials say they have waited long enough to complete acquisition of the land for this relatively small park.
Enrollment projection errors shift 4 areas' status
Predicting future school enrollments is a tricky business, and a few errors in the latest Howard County attempt show the pitfalls - and the promise - of the recently revised process, officials say.
The errors moved four schools across the threshold of classroom crowding in charts that were submitted Monday night to the County Council to suggest limitations to development.
As a result, areas around Northfield, Lisbon and Phelps Luck elementary schools will be closed to development in 2005 rather than open, and the area around Hammond Middle School will be open to development instead of closed.
The predictions dictate where development will be limited three years into the future, the county's attempt to control crowding. But parents and politicians have complained for years that the projections are unreliable and undercounted students, while builders complained frequent changes cost them money.
Gas-storage opponents prepare for Round 5
Western Howard County residents who don't want 50,000 gallons of propane stored across the road from Triadelphia Ridge Elementary School are resignedly preparing for Round 5 of a long-running fight.
Parents thought they had won a year ago, when they persuaded the County Council to change the zoning law so that large propane-storage facilities would not be allowed on land zoned B-2 - a type of business zoning - as is the parcel west of the school.
But a revised proposal for the project was heard Tuesday under the old regulations, which allow propane storage of up to 52,489 gallons as long as it is not within 100 yards of a church, hospital or school. The school property shared by Triadelphia Ridge Elementary and unfinished Folly Quarter Middle School is about 150 to 200 yards from the site, parents said.
Ellicott City developer J. Chris Pippen is asking for permission to build two 25,000-gallon storage tanks on a 2.4-acre parcel between Route 32, Triadelphia Road and Ten Oaks Road. The land is near houses, a gas station and the elementary school.
Court asked to help collect elections chief's fine
Maryland's attorney general is asking a Circuit Court to order collection of a $7,500 ethics violation fine from Howard County's elections board administrator, who has ignored a 9-month-old decision of the state's high court.
The outstanding fine sparked outrage Wednesday among Howard officials, though the violation occurred in the mid-1990s, when Administrator Robert J. Antonetti Sr. held the same job in Prince George's County.
The Rev. Roland L. Howard Sr., Howard County's Board of Elections president, said that if the court issues the order, he will convene an emergency board meeting for what might be drastic action.
Robbery, assault lead list of crimes on rise in county
Crime was up in Howard County in most categories during the first quarter of this year, compared with the first quarter of last year, according to crime statistics released Wednesday by county police.
In most categories, including burglary and theft, increases were less than 6 percent, but robberies and aggravated assaults increased more than 10 percent from the comparable three-month period last year.
Over the past three years, robberies jumped from 36 cases in the first quarter of 2000 to 48 during the comparable period last year to 53 this year. Those increases followed a significant drop from 69 in the first quarter of 1999 in robberies that police attributed to their then-new robbery unit.
Advanced degrees common among Howard residents
Sure, Janet Kusterer has a master's degree. But then so do a lot of people in her Ellicott City neighborhood. And bachelor's degrees? Please - a dime a dozen. In Howard County, half the residents older than 24 have a college education. Only seven counties in the United States can boast a larger percentage, according to census data released last week.
People with advanced degrees account for nearly a quarter of Howard's adult population, about the same as the nationwide percentage of people with undergraduate and advanced degrees combined.