Dana Beyer, MD, for Maryland State Delegate 2010

Education 2010

This has been a very difficult year for public and private education in the County. The Great Recession has strained the county budget now for three years, leading to cuts in the MCPS budget as well. Teachers have had to share in the sacrifice and do without COLAs and step increases. Class sizes will have to be increased for the first time in many years. Private schools have lost students to the public schools, furthering straining the public school budget. While the very low interest rates have allowed capital improvements and modernizations to proceed apace, there is still much more that needs to be done.

This year has been marked by a completely unnecessary fiasco between the county and the State Board of Education, with the county being fined for not maintaining the funding for the schools under the Maintenance of Effort law. That a county known for its prize school system, which has always surpassed the minimum requirements of state law, would be forced into creative bookkeeping leading to a fine, is absurd.

Another scandal relates to the BOAST bill, a misnomer on the order of “No Child Left Behind” that stands for Better Opportunities for All Students and Teachers. This was a backdoor attempt to violate the First Amendment and publicly fund ailing parochial schools.

Lobbied for by the Governor at the behest of the Catholic Conference and the orthodox Jewish community, and with the state teachers union keeping a much lower profile than in previous years, the bill sailed through the Senate, adding $50 million to a $2 billion deficit. When no one else stepped forward to assist the staff-starved ACLU, I took the lead in organizing the progressive community to keep the bill locked up in the House Ways and Means committee, where it died at the end of the current session.

The biggest crisis though, years in the making, is the issue of teacher pensions. While the counties negotiate with teacher unions, the state has covered the pension obligations. Because of some rather uncreative accounting, known as the Corridor Plan, the pensions are grossly underfunded. For several years now Senate President Miller has threatened to dump the pensions on the counties, which have even less ability to pay the bills than the state.

This issue is rapidly becoming a hostage to politics.  After County Executive Leggett drew a line in the sand, many thought the debate was over.  But then  Senator Richard Madaleno (D-18), surprised the county delegation and offered an amendment to the Senate budget, transferring 50% of the pension responsibility to the county by 2015.

Opposed by all the other county senators, the amendment still passed the Senate, and was killed by the House. It now goes to a special blue-ribbon panel for summer study and will be acted upon by the new legislature after the election.

I plan on making a progressive solution to the pension crunch a top priority in that new legislative session. Senator Madaleno has defended his action as the best possible solution for the county, given the choices available, but the truth is that  all options were never on the table to be considered by the Senate.

A bill offered by Delegate Manno (D-19) would have covered the pension liabilities by banning certain corporate tax avoidance schemes known as combined reporting, and maintaining the “millionaire’s tax” surcharge. When progressive solutions are not even on the table, we have another instance of a center-left state being led into crisis by a center-right government.

This must end. So many of our problems are intractable because of fundamentally failed Republican economic solutions being imposed by the state Democratic Party. It’s time for reform. It’s time for principled progressive change.