Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich called Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent’s $2.7 billion Capital Improvements budget proposal expensive, but necessary.
“It speaks to years of neglect,” Elrich said during his weekly meeting with the news media.
Elrich said he plans to meet with school board and council members to thoroughly review Superintendent Thomas Taylor’s request, which he said amounted to an increase of $949 million, or $160 million a year over six years.
Improvements to school buildings “should have been worked on all along,” he said, adding that if nothing is done, MCPS buildings and utilities will “further deteriorate.”
According to Elrich, the county is spending less now on Capital Improvement projects for MCPS than it did in 2009. At that time, the county spent about $300 million per year, which he said was equivalent to $500 million in today’s dollars. Yet, MCPS is spending about $280 million a year currently.
“Not funding [repairs] doesn’t make them go away,”said Elrich. “In fact, it makes it worse … This requires a solution not more kicking down the road,” he said.
When presenting his proposed budget earlier this week, Taylor said, “Our facility condition is, in fact, declining,” adding, “And the sad part about this is that it’s not just declining, but it’s getting worse and worse and worse every year because the gap in the resources we have to fill is continuing to widen each year.”
Enrollment
Taylor also spoke of declining enrollment in the school district, which had an enrollment of 156,540 students in September, a decrease in 2,600 students since the previous school year.
Elrich called the enrollment decline “not altogether surprising” and said it was part of a natural cycle. He attributed the reduction to a declining birth rate, as well as a decrease in the number of immigrants.
“Part of it is going to be due to Trump’s actions around deportation where people either already have been deported or are worried about being deported or self deporting themselves before they get swept up,” he said.
