1/15/15
Superintendent’s Proposed Budget
The public hearing on the budget proposed to the Board was held as scheduled on Thursday, 1/8/15. To all who attended, thank you. To all who attended and gave testimony, a special thank you.
There is still time to advocate before the members of the Board of Education. They have a budget workshop coming up on Tuesday, January 20 at 6:00pm. No testimony will be taken, but nothing prevents educators from contacting Board members by email and following up by attending. The issue on which to advocate is a step increase. As proposed, the budget contains a “placeholder” for employee compensation that is insufficient in amount to cover the step increase that all four unionized bargaining units have in the respective Agreements. It’s a very serious concern. If the Board does not modify its budget to request funds from the County Executive to pay for a step increase, it is unlikely that there will be one. The Board cannot get from the County what the Board does not ask for.
Board members’ email addresses are shown below along with those for their Assistant (Ms. Connolly) and the Superintendent:
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
Please take a few minutes to send them your budget message; if it does not regard a step increase, then a priority of your own. The Board will adopt the budget to be recommended to the County Executive on Wednesday, February 18th with or without your input. Your input could make a difference in the result.
MARYLAND STATE BUDGET
Much talk goes on year after year about the County budget. That’s for good reason because the local government provides a larger portion of revenue to the school system than any of its other funding sources. However, we cannot ignore the significance of State funding, which is about one-third of the school system’s total revenue. The prospect of cuts in the state budget have been widely publicized. The potential for some of those cuts falling to public education is deeply troubling. Cuts to education would make our jobs more difficult. It would be harder to fund our contract, to provide the resources you need to do your job, and to support the class sizes and programs that our students deserve.
Please take the 20 seconds required to sign the below petition to protect funding for public education.
Stay tuned for updates soon after Gov.-Elect Hogan releases his full budget proposal.
SALARY TALKS
One of TAAAC’s issues at the bargaining table is to ameliorate internal inequities that occurred in the transition to the new scale. The parties agreed to appoint a joint subcommittee to work on reasonable approaches to do so. That subcommittee is holding its first meeting on the date of this correspondence. There is not a single approach that will not have a price tag. Please take the few minutes required to send some messages and sign the petition as requested above.
