Some Maryland school superintendents and school boards fear they won't get as much money from cash-strapped local governments as they normally would in the next budget year because of increases in state aid required under the landmark Thornton Commission law.
They worry that county councils and commissions across Maryland will let the increased Thornton Commission allocation suffice for increases the governing bodies would typically grant to schools.
Without those usual increases in local contributions, school officials said, they won't be able to pay for class size reductions, teacher training and other programs that the new Thornton Commission law envisioned would help at-risk students.
As budget planning begins this winter, local school officials are worried they will be forced to use any additional Thornton funding to pay for annual raises in salaries, benefits and other operating expenses.
"We will be in a really miserable position," said Washington County Superintendent Elizabeth M. Morgan, who recently sent a letter to state legislators warning of the problem.
Public education, Morgan said, "isn't like a business where we can put off buying a piece of equipment. You have to have teachers in front of kids, so what this will mean is you will have larger class sizes."
Local government officials said they are committed to schools, but they must also pay for police, firefighters and other important services at a time when the state is threatening to cut aid to local governments to balance a projected $1.8 billion shortfall over the next two years.
"County tax-hike capacity is tapped out, and there are competing interests," said David S. Bliden, executive director of the Maryland Association of Counties.
"It would be fair to say," Bliden said, "that these school officials should be focusing their attention and energy on the state funding its commitments to local governments."
Under Maryland law, local governments can't reduce spending on school systems. But in previous years, many have spent more than the mandatory minimum, called the "maintenance of effort."
"We are very concerned that some counties will view 'maintenance of effort' as a ceiling rather than a floor," said John R. Woolums, director of governmental relations for the Maryland Association of Boards of Education.
Local cuts were not intended by this year's Thornton Commission law, which committed an extra $1.3 billion in state spending on schools over the next six fiscal years. Fiscal years in Maryland run from July 1 to June 30.
The additional state aid, which Gov.-elect Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. has said he will provide in his spending plans, is to pay for extra programs for low-income and special-education students, as well as for students with limited English-speaking skills.
Well-off districts
But while the Thornton Commission law required additional state funding for districts, it did not require city and county governments to keep increasing their school contributions as much as they had been doing.
That gives local government officials a loophole to cut back on annual increases in school spending, with extra state dollars picking up the slack.
School officials wonder how they will be able to afford new federal and state mandates even if they are forced to abandon initiatives for at-risk students.
The concern is not universal. School officials from Carroll, Howard and other wealthy districts historically well-funded by local governments have not expressed concerns about declining rates of local support.
"Right now, we don't have that issue in Anne Arundel County," said Gregory Nourse, associate superintendent for business and management services.
"The only thing that might throw a whole monkey wrench into this whole thing is what the state is going to do with its shortfall," he said. "It may be like it was in 1992, when the counties have to go to the school systems and take back money."
State Sen. Barbara A. Hoffman, a Democrat from Baltimore who shepherded the Thornton legislation through the Maryland Senate, said that might have to happen, as the Thornton Commission law's good intentions make way for fiscal reality.
"I don't think it's rational to expect local governments to maintain an extraordinary level of aid to education if they get reductions in state money," she said.
Unexpected costs
Elise Armacost, spokeswoman for Baltimore County Executive James T. Smith Jr., said he will do "everything he can to safeguard" funding for education and public safety.
"But that being said, anybody who has read anything about the state's budget situation has got to have some concerns about funding," she said.
Some school systems experienced the squeeze this fiscal year.
Baltimore County allocated $2.1 million in extra state money for purchases computers and for prekindergarten programs. But the remaining $1.1 million in additional aid paid for unexpected increases in health care costs.
"That wasn't what it was set up for," said school board President Donald L. Arnold. "Thornton money was supposed to be additional dollars for the schools."
The Frederick County school system had to use its additional state funding to pay for rising salary and health care costs because the county didn't raise its spending on schools as much as expected last fiscal year, said school board President Ronald W. Peppe II.
Plans to replace textbooks and to train teachers, he said, were then dropped.
Washington County Superintendent Morgan was forced to cancel initiatives to enhance reading and to reduce class sizes in elementary schools, she said, after the county subtracted from its contribution an extra $2.1 million given by the state.
"There needs to be some teeth in the [Thornton Commission law] to ensure the locals increase their contributions," Morgan said. "We're supposed to be getting this money because we need it above and beyond what the locals have been giving."