The following public comments were made at the October 14th Board of Education meeting by Harford County Public Schools parent Sandra Monaco-Burton:
Good evening. My name is Sandra Monaco-Burton, and I have served as a PTA volunteer and an HCPS committee volunteer in various capacities for the last seven years.
I wanted to address the budget process and my hope that you actually do make the parents and overall community a greater part of the endeavor. A few meetings ago this board lamented the lack of parent involvement in the last budget’s development despite the fact that several input sessions were held. I have heard comments that suggest that the parents just aren’t engaged and that the board had to make the tough decisions alone.
It occurs to me that your perspective and the parent perspective are very different.
The announcement for last year’s Budget Hearings read: “Community members and employees are invited to attend to provide input and share what they feel is important for consideration as the Superintendent begins to prepare his operating budget…”
There was nothing particularly dire in that notice. A handful of people did come out to those hearings, and in most cases gave suggestions on where you should increase spending.
Then the January budget work sessions occurred with no revelations that buses, or classes, or activities would be cut or class sizes would be increased. You ended up producing a bigger budget, and, by Spring, parents were asked to speak in favor of the county fully funding the additional $20- odd million that the school system now required. The Board was saying the financial climate was bad and that tough decisions would need to be made, but I would assert that few parents understood how you arrived at this very different circumstance in a few short months, let alone how or where to help you.
In sharp contrast, this year the budget hearing announcements do express a more urgent need for community input. In addition, with some of your recent decisions when you chose NOT to ENGAGE the parents in such topics as busing, magnet school transportation and pay-to-play, you managed to ENRAGE them, and you do now indeed have the public’s attention. You must keep it by giving people the tools with which to help you.
From my perspective, telling the community every January that we can go to the school system’s website and download the draft budget and make comments about it is an absurd way to ask for input. The budget runs 475 pages. Who can analyze online a financial document that size? If I really want to figure out where the money is spent, I need to print a ream of paper so that I can flip back and forth between the thousands of line items, marking items and making notes where something seems questionable or needs clarification.
After I review the 475 pages, I will have questions, maybe even some suggestions. However, I will have no access to HCPS budget and finance personnel. There will be no one to explain a line item and no one to explain a mandate or the story behind a certain expense. And, while I can come to the Board’s work sessions and talk at you for a few minutes, there will be no dialog. Other community members will come to talk at you, but none of us will get answers to our questions. I doubt few, if any, real cost savings ideas, or creative solutions will come to light.
Another January will come and go, the budget will get created by HCPS, and the public will again be informed that the only way we can help is by asking the county for more money.
This process needs to change. There has been talk of creating a Citizen Budget Advisory Committee. I hope you are out now asking for community volunteers to work with you on the budget. We need to be a real part of the development process so that we can be advocates that go back to the parents, teachers, and students.
This entire community can be part of the tough decisions. I can assure you that had you let parents know you needed to find $1.5 million to save transportation, people would have volunteered to help you figure out a better solution for the students than the one we are living with now.
Please make us a partner in the budget process. Give us the tools to make a smarter budget along with you. Harford County has a highly committed and talented volunteer population—it is time for you to engage us in a way that improves the educational experience for the children.
How about u advocate for your friends in Congress to follow the law and pass their own budget as required by law. Then I’ll hear your blathering about a states issue. Shame on all of you tax hungry automotons
Nice, informative letter Sandra M.C., but I’m always skeptical about “armchair quarterbacks” (usually with an agenda) armed with basic information (and misinformation), trying desperately to contribute to a very complicated issue like a budget the size and complexity of the Harford County B.O.E. None the less, you don’t sound like a whack-o to me. 🙂
The most needed improvement to the budget process is for HCPS to ask the Council for an acceptable number before they prepare the budget. There is no point proposing a 5% increase if the Council knows months beforehand they will not approve a 2% hike.
Bravo Monaco-Burton! Bravo!
She is right on the money.
I heard a long time ago that the State of Maryland has some very strict requirements on Counties about how they organize their Dept of Education budgets. Mr. John O’Rourke, a former superintendent of schools in Howard County, and winner of a national superintendent of schools award at one point, actually proposed re-organizing the Howard County Dept of Ed budget in order for parents, educators, community members to better identify priorities, potential cost savings, etc. Unfortunately, that item and not putting all day kindergarten in a particular year’s budget put him at odds in my opinion, with the powerful state influence that continually ties the hands of our local education officials. His contract was not renewed and he was asked to leave early.
Yes, the state gives us a lot of money for education. They should, their politically motivated regulations on education cost our children a lot of educational potential.
This working together to make sure the money is spent as wisely and with as much value as humanly possible would do all of our children in public schools a world of good! PTA presidents, officers, fundraising volunteers who give 1000s of hours of free time and parents who give hundreds of thousands of free money across a county, teachers and principals who spend surprising amounts of their own money on things to benefit the children………. all would be great resources to help look at the budget and offer their input.
Perhaps pieces could be carved out for parents via PTAs or other community groups to take care of.
I believe public education, i.e. community public schools, is a cornerstone of our democracy. We can make it better. Between now and next November 2014 we work to select a Governor, Lt Governor, and a majority of 47 Senators, and 141 State Delegates who would be willing to support public education and not use it as their political playground.
Very good – finally a parent takes the bull-by-horns to make some sense! Thank you for that. However, I am ashamed to admit that I have lost all desire to ‘fight-the-fight’ after so many poor choices made by HCPS from the Board all the way down to the local schools. The teachers are struggling with less support than they should get for the jobs they do; yet the their seems to be more administrative personnel positions added or created each year. Their handling of the redistricting in the North Harford area (and I’m sure other areas as well) was so poorly done, and then the budgets and the teacher cuts — it makes one feel very defeated to KNOW that there were plenty of parents voicing the same opinions and concerns and suggestions, only it all fell on deaf ears. And then the transportation fiasco has really taken the cake — not to mention affected so many working class families, but apparently the HCPS Board doesnt care enough to take these issues more seriously than they did. Too much work for them perhaps? I specifically live in Harford County for my children to attend HCPS — but lately, I wondering why. Good luck – and thank you!
Tough decisions will always leave someone unhappy. I thought the redistricting was handled as well as could be expected when you move thousands of kids to different schools because of lopsided attendance in several schools. What administrative positions that you mention have been created? The budget problems are the result of decisions made by the CE and CC who are supported by the voters. The school system was warning about the consequences of underfunding for the past several years but the public and the politicians did not listen. Finally the chickens have come home to roost. The school system could no longer absorb the underfunding from within and now parents and students are just beginning to feel what has been happening inside the school system over the past few years. The funding authorities can no longer ignore this situation. That light at the end of the tunnel is really the train wreck that is closing in on the school system very fast. Fees and changes to transportation are only the beginning if funding is not substantially improved. If you do not like how the school system is being funded then change the people sitting in the elected offices that can do something about it.
By all means lets get those same parents involved in the budget process that whined about having to fork out $50.00 in fees for non-academic after school activities. Those folks would clearly be the perfect partners to decide how to spend other peoples money.
And you tell me, why are already 10 replacement buses and one new full-sized bus for special needs being approved for next year before the consultant’s report is being heard. Actually, I am still waiting on it, when it is being made public at all! And where did the money go which was not spent at the end of the last school year?
How old are the ones they are replacing? Are the ones they are replacing up to the standards required by law. I believe there is a law about how old a school bus can be. It might just be that to be in compliance with the law the buses are required at that point.
Cdev, maybe you should read more quickly those pdf files which so often disappear a moment later at the hcps website. Every vehicle, I mean all from pick-up to school bus, is on a 5-year replacement plan. There is no review if a replacement is needed. That is how they spend our good money!
Five years is a ridiculously short time period. A 1+ ton diesel work truck or bus is expected to be commercially useful for ten years at a minimum.
You are wrong. State regulation requires that all school buses be replaced after 12 years of service. HCPS adheres to this timeline for all buses owned and operated by the school system as do the subcontractors who transport HCPS students. Other maintenance vehicles owned by the school system are replaced on a need basis which is usually much longer than five years and sometimes longer than the 12 year requirement for buses.
The report you cite justifies the 12 year timeline for replacement and also states that in certain specific instances a longer life cycle (15 years) for buses might be acceptable.
It seems the maximum age for a bus in Maryland is 12 years. That was according to a policy I found in St. Mary’s county from 2007. It also seems according to a school bus contractor message board that the average lifespan of a bus seems to be 7 years with a bus used as a substitue bus for the last few years.
You sound like you have inside information. What else can you tell us? Cdev is correct there are state regulations as to how old a school bus can be. At some point the cost of maintenance and repair is not cost effective so replacement is the more prudent option.
Here is a good pdf file explaining what guidelines they want to set for school buses:
http://www.nasdpts.org/Documents/Paper-BusReplacement.pdf
Again, any tries to find restrictions on the md site or the nhtsais fruitless, there are none besides having good tires.
OMG! And the audit did not catch it? How much could have been saved over the last years!!#!###! How many other crazy rules are in the budget? Will we be able to find all documentation on the website finally to weed those things out of the budget?
Read my response to your 5 year replacement cycle comments.
I would for this year, if hcps would have not decided to replace the document with the summary sheet of the capital improvement plan, on which has been voted and approved. But when you look at the budget from 2014 and previous years, you will find references on the 5 year replacement cycle.
I do not know what report you refer to. Maybe an inspection report or assessment of vehicle road worthiness completed on a five year life cycle. The fact remains the same that HCPS buses are not replaced on a five year cycle. Unless there is some extraordinary circumstance buses used by HCPS and their subcontractors are replaced after 12 years of use.
Could you please proof your claim? I just checked and to the documents, hcps owns about 100 buses and on the last budget year, about 20 buses were replaced each year, sometimes one more or one less, but 5 times 20 is 100 where I come from.
The replacement of these buses is required by law. Since it was made public that a transportation study was being conducted I am certain the report will be made public when it is completed. Probably as part of the discussion about next years budget.
As for any savings from last year that is called “fund balance” which every government entity has at the end of a budget cycle. The fund balance incurred by Harford Co. government is always significantly higher than that of HCPS. In the case of HCPS the fund balance is always a very small percentage to the total allotted budget within the given year. It has been used to help pay the bills in the upcoming budget year when the school system is underfunded by county government. Some of that money is used to keep teachers on the payroll.
problem is how the schools are funded — every time employees are funded by FEDERAL money — these are one-time grants, the state/local governments need to be COMMITTED to keeping the funding after the expiration of the grant; this will likely involve tax increases. the same goes for all these CHARTER SCHOOLS… charter schools are typically created with federal grant money too, and therefore the state and local taxing authority needs to be committed to raising taxes to keep these schools funded. the state and local government officials and politicians need to be open, honest, transparent, clear, and explain this information to the public. we can’t have local politicians going off to their constituents with half-baked notions of how to fix what they don’t completely understand. maybe the finance and accounting people need to explain these things to everyone.
Good try, but it doesn’t matter what the parents want or ask for, the whole process is political anyway. I have been to several meetings and pleaded and begged as have several other concerned parents and nothing was ever solved. Parents are disheartened and have just given up the fight. There is no fair way to put schools on a list for repairs or construction. The politicians with the biggest pull get their way. the whole thing is useless.
Help Elementary Music Teacher Nick Selvi if you want to do something. The Board of Education and HCPS should be ashamed of what they are doing to that man. Disgraceful!!!!!
@ Justice: Please contact me at cindy@daggerpress.com
Cindy, please read the facebook page A Sweet Piece of Nick. It is the Selvi’s story to tell.