Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) Superintendent Dr. Monifa B. McKnight recently proposed a $3.15 billion operating budget for the fiscal year 2024. This new budget marks an 8.1% increase from the fiscal year 2023 budget.
The expanded budget is meant to reflect the Board of Education’s four priorities for the year: “seeing tangible improvements in math and literacy, building a safe and inclusive school climate for all schools, improving recruitment, retention and the equitable distribution of diverse staff across the district, and supporting two-way communication between our schools and our families,” MCPS Board of Education President Karla Silvestre said during a public meeting on Dec. 19, 2022, at Northwest High School.
To accomplish these goals, the proposed budget has been broken down into four categories. Instruction will receive 80.1% of the budget. School support services will receive 14.1% of the budget, while systemwide support will receive 3.0% of the budget. Enterprise funds and special revenue funds will receive 2.8% of the budget.
Press releases surrounding the proposal have underlined eight primary aims that MCPS hopes to accomplish through increased funding.
One of these aims is to provide competitive salaries for teachers to drive worker recruitment and retention. In an interview with Montgomery Community Media, McKnight emphasized the necessity of sufficient salaries to outweigh the high living costs in Montgomery County. “We have to be able to…have competitive salaries and put strong support structures in place so that our teachers come into this profession and they stay,” McKnight said. The current budget proposal allocates $119.2 million to paying teacher salaries.
Other primary aims include establishing two new Innovative Calendar schools, which are scheduled to include an additional 30 days of instruction, through an allocation of $2.5 million. An additional $591,000 has been set aside to expand dual-language programs to three MCPS schools, creating two Spanish immersion programs and one Chinese immersion program.
For the youngest students in the county, $2.1 million has been allocated to making PreK and childhood education more accessible, especially for children with disabilities. Another $100,000 has been allocated to increasing literacy resources for young children.
High school students are set to benefit from the new budget through the $1.8 million designated for the expansion of the College Track advising network and the $3.4 million set aside to offer MCPS students free Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) exams.
The proposal also includes a $1.5 million expenditure for the development of a school bus tracking software that students and parents can use in real time.
Many of these initiatives have been met with approval from MCPS students. “I think that it’s nice MCPS is spending money towards decreasing AP and IB exam costs because we all know how expensive those are, especially for students who have to give up opportunities because they live on a tight budget yet can’t qualify for certain waivers,” Richard Montgomery High School senior Krishna Kunamaneni said. “I also really like the idea of increasing salaries for teachers.”
Richard Montgomery senior Claire Chen also expressed support for the expanded budget. “I’d like to see more integration in technology, especially in materials and gadgets that will help us further our education and explore concepts in more depth,” she said.
MCPS currently has two public hearings scheduled for Jan. 11 and Jan. 17, during which community members will be able to discuss the budget proposal. Three budget work sessions have also been planned for Jan. 12, Jan. 18 and Jan. 24.
The Board of Education is set to tentatively approve the budget on Feb. 7. The proposal will then be sent to the Montgomery County Executive and County Council.
The final fiscal year 2024 operating budget will be adopted by the Board of Education on Jun. 6, 2023.
Written by Chloe Goldberg of Richard Montgomery High School
Photo by Norah Sonti of Richard Montgomery High School