Tag: budget

Session Materials Available from Budget Q & A

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by Tommi Makila

The budget question and answer session organized by Prince George’s County Advocates for Better Schools on February 4th was a success. Despite the need to reschedule the event due to the snowstorm, the meeting was well attended.

The agenda for the meeting was straightforward. PGCPS Budget and Management Services Director John Pfister provided an overview of the budget, followed by a lively and informative question and answer session. Among the many topics discussed were special education funding, student based budgeting, technology expenditures, philanthropic donations to the school system, building maintenance, professional development, and the proposed parent university. Mr. Pfister and his staff also had prepared answers to previously submitted questions by PGCABS members.

Residents are encouraged to provide input on the CEO’s proposed budget. See this recent blog post for information about the February 9th public hearing and other ways to make your opinion heard.

Mr. Pfister’s presentation and other handouts from the Q&A event are helpful resources for those interested in the budget:

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Budget Q & A on February 4th (Updated)

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Update: Due to the severe snowstorm, this event has been rescheduled for Thursday, February 4th.

PGCABS flyerBring your questions about the CEO’s proposed operating budget for Fiscal Year 2017 to the Greenbelt Community Center (Rm. 114) on Monday, January 25th Thursday, February 4th at 6 pm. Staff from the PGCPS Budget Office will be in attendance to answer questions.

As you are preparing your questions, keep the following in mind:

  • Be sure that your questions are clear and to the point. This is not the time to make speeches about the virtues or failings of the budget. Save those comments for the Board of Education‘s budget hearing on February 9th.
  • Questions should pertain specifically to the operating budget. This meeting is not focused on school construction and renovation projects; capital improvements have a separate budget.
  • If possible, email your questions in advance of the meeting to pgcabschools@gmail.com or enter them into this google form.
  • Here is the link to CEO Maxwell’s proposed budget.

Have more questions about the event? Email us at pgcabschools@gmail.com.

Here is a link to the Facebook event page.

Time to Pay Attention to the School Budget

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by Tommi Makila

It’s school budget time again. The CEO’s proposed operating budget for fiscal year 2017 is ambitious, so it is likely that we will again go through a spirited discussion about the school system and its funding level. So that your participatation in the discussion is more meaningful, I recommend doing the following three things:

1. Read the CEO’s proposed budget. The school system’s CEO presented his proposed operating budget to the Board of Education in early December. This proposed budget is available on the PGCPS website, on the Budget and Management Services webpage. Even if you don’t read the whole thing (the full document is over 300 pages), at least become familiar with the parts of the budget that interest you the most. Or read the introduction to the budget, a much shorter document that gives an overview of the budget.

2. Attend the budget Q&A session. Prince George’s County Advocates for Better Schools (PGCABS) is hosting a meeting so that interested residents can pose questions to the PGCPS budget office staff about the proposed budget. The Q&A session will be held on Monday, January 25 from 6 pm to 8 pm in Room 114 of the Greenbelt Community Center (15 Crescent Road, Greenbelt). To submit a question(s) in advance of the meeting, click here (or send an email to pgcabschools@gmail.com). Click here to submit questions about the budget . PGCPS budget staff will prepare answers in advance of the meeting. Emailed questions need to be submitted by Monday, January 18.

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PGCPS Parent Urges School System to Look for Ways to Save Money

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The following is a statement to be delivered by Tommi Makila at the Prince George’s County Council Budget Hearing on April 28, 2015. The views expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the owner of this website, Prince George’s County Advocates for Better Schools.

Good evening,

My name is Tommi Makila. I live in Accokeek, and my son attends Prince George’s County Public Schools. I am a PTA activist and heavily involved in my son’s school.

First of all, I consider improving our schools a high priority. Thus, I want to commend the County Executive for making our schools a high priority. However, I have serious concerns about the school budget proposal.

I believe the goals and strategies outlined in the County Executive’s school budget proposal make sense and seem likely to strengthen the school system and improve its performance. However, what seems to be lacking in the proposal is any serious effort to seek savings to fund the new proposals. When you ask for a significant investment in certain areas – significant enough to warrant a 15% property tax increase – I believe you also have the responsibility to look for meaningful savings opportunities in other areas of the budget. Our goal should be to try to minimize, or even eliminate, the need for a property tax increase. Just like any other organization, we will need to prioritize issues.

InstructionalExpendituresChart

Graph Credit: Tom Dernoga

To substantiate my belief that there is room in the school budget to prioritize items without sacrificing our investment in the classroom, I want to point out a couple of facts about the school budget. Between FY2003 and FY2015, total school system expenditures have risen by 685 million. During the same time period, instructional salaries have only risen by 156 million1.

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Prince George’s Association for TAG Supports County Executive’s Proposal to Fund PGCPS

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IMG_6359The following is a statement from the board of the Prince George’s Association for Talented and Gifted Education, republished here with permission. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of the owner of this website, Prince George’s County Advocates for Better Schools (PGCABS).

To view this statement on the PGTAG website, go here.

Statement from PGTAG Board

Supporting the County Executive’s  FY’2015-16 Budget to Fund PGCPS’ Strategic Plan

April 12, 2015

Prince George’s County Association for Talented and Gifted Education

(PGTAG), during its April board meeting, agreed to support County Executive Rushern Baker’s fiscal year 2015-16 budget to fund PGCPS’ strategic plan.

For far too long, our school system has been requesting only the local funding for what it thought it might receive vs. what is really required to improve the quality of PGCPS. This practice of requesting the minimal funding needed to continue with the status quo is called “maintenance of effort.”

Our students deserve more than “maintenance of effort.”  This constricted funding stream for our public education system has denied PGCPS the ability to gain momentum on a host of educational priorities critically needed to create and maintain the kind of quality education system that is needed for the children of our county.

We don’t take our decision making—to support funding the budget through the lifting of our local property tax cap—lightly. But the cap is partially to blame for our limited success in the past. The four-decades long cap on property taxes means that we’ve been funding schools at the same percentage of dollars as we were in 1978.

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Prince George’s Schools CEO Says Tax Hike Will Lift Schools

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From WUSA9, reported by Scott Broom, April 22, 2015.

For the complete story, go here.

UPPER MARLBORO, Md. (WUSA9) — “It’s as much as a guarantee as I can give you,” said Prince George’s County Schools CEO Kevin Maxwell when asked about his strategic plan for Prince George’s County Schools.

Maxwell’s plan promises to lift the county’s long-suffering school system from near the bottom of state ranks to within the top-10 by 2020.

Not a single member of the Council has committed to support the tax proposal which will be voted on in the county budget by June 1.

Click here to continue reading and to watch the video coverage at the WUSA9 site.