SNOW HILL– County leaders highlighted their support of growing education spending while school system officials addressed what they categorized as misinformation this week.
In the wake of the decision by the Worcester County Commissioners to fund Worcester County Public Schools (WCPS) at the maintenance of effort level, school system staff attempted to dispel what they said was misinformation regarding everything from fleet vehicles to the Disney logo used in this year’s promotional materials. Several of the commissioners, meanwhile, stressed that the county was spending more on the school system than it did last year and still hadn’t received answers to numerous financial questions.
“It is not the purpose of this body to micromanage but it is our responsibility to see how taxpayer money is being used,” Commissioner Chip Bertino said. “There is no reason all of us in elected office, all functions of government, should not be open to the public and the taxpayers to see where that money’s being spent.”
The commissioners voted 4-2 last week to approve a maintenance of effort budget for the school system. Maintenance of effort, or MOE, is a state law that requires county governments to provide the same amount of funding on a per pupil basis next year as they did this year. At this week’s meeting of the Worcester County Board of Education, Vince Tolbert, the school system’s chief financial officer, said what the MOE formula didn’t take into account was inflation or salary increases. He said the decision by the commissioners meant that the county would be providing $279,000 less next year than they provided this year to the school system. He said that left the school system $4.5 million short.
“To fund the budget the board adopted last month, to fund it fully, we’re going to have to reduce staff, resources and programs to help our children to fund the budget the way it was adopted,” he said.
According to the commissioners, however, the county is spending more on education than it did last year. Commissioner Eric Fiori said in an interview that while WCPS was being funded at the MOE level, the county was putting a significant amount of funding toward other post-employment benefits—the benefits provided to board of education retirees. Fiori said the school system only put aside $2.8 million a year for its retirees, whose benefits cost about $6.2 million a year. The county covers the remaining cost and also puts funding in an investment trust designed to cover future retiree costs.
“The county has been making up the difference to ensure retirees receive the benefits they were promised,” Fiori said. “So although on the front side we are restricting the board of education to maintenance of effort, we’re adding approximately $8 million into current and future retirement for our hardworking teachers.”
In the school system presentation this week, Dwayne Abt, assistant superintendent of human relations and safety, said WCPS had faced an unexpected health care cost increase, as the county had not approved the school system’s recommendation and had instead approved a 9.5% increase for health care. He said that had increased the school system’s costs $1.1 million.
Tolbert said he also wanted to address “misinformation that’s out there.” He said as far as WCPS being top heavy, according to the state Worcester County ranked 21st out of 24 school systems in administrative spending. He said 1.49% of the proposed budget was administrative spending. As far as the school system not being transparent, Tolbert said WCPS was a separate entity and had its own elected school board.
“We do want to be transparent with our county commissioners. As I said earlier we did meet with the county administrator and his assistant,” Tolbert said, adding that they’d provided an additional 21 pages of budget detail.
County officials, however, noted that 21 pages of detail only accounted for 4% of the school system’s budget. That amounts to detail on about $5.6 million of a $130 million operating budget.
School system officials on Tuesday went on to refute the allegation that they’d spent money on using the Disney logo in promotional materials.
“Because we are a nonprofit agency and we were not using the designs commercially we were not subject to any fees,” said Carrie Sterrs, the school system’s coordinator of public relations and special programs.
WCPS leadership also addressed the issue of vehicles.
“Providing those vehicles to those employees saves us money as opposed to if we were paying them the IRS reimbursement rate of 65.5 cents per mile,” Tolbert said. “It results in annual savings of $21,900 and that does not include the payroll deduction that is withheld from our employees for having the benefit of that car, which is about $8,100 per year.”
Tolbert reiterated that with the MOE budget, the board would not be able to fund everything that was outlined in its budget, including raises.
“We don’t have money to do those increases that we negotiated and we agreed to,” he said. “It’s not there.”
Fiori said the school system’s proposed budget was up 4.7% when other county departments had been held at or below 2%.
“The ball is in the court of the board of education,” he said. “They have more than adequate funding to balance the budget. All of our hardworking teachers, support staff and bus drivers should be given the raises they were promised.”
County officials believe the school system could be using its roughly $9 million in remaining ESSER grants to help with the budget. School system officials, however, have said that there are significant restrictions on that funding. School board member Katie Addis, who has been asking for more transparency from the school system since March, suggested that money could fund raises. Officials were quick to respond that it could not but went on to acknowledge it could be used to provide one-time bonuses. They stressed that spending ESSER funds required state approval.
“There’s definitely a process we’d have to go through to be shifting any of that funding,” said Annette Wallace, the school system’s chief operating and academics officer grades 9-12.
Addis said at the end of the day, the school system still had to figure out how to deal with the reduced budget. She said pay had already been negotiated with teachers and support staff.
Todd Ferrante, president of the school board, said a community-based school system couldn’t function properly with a $4.5 million shortfall. He said the county had started the budget process with an $11 million shortfall of its own but had somehow created a budget that featured a $400,000 surplus.
“… and we haven’t even recognized what’s going to come from assessments in July,” he said. “The county will have money. They could support everything we’ve asked for. We’d be happy to sit down with them and be happy to discuss whatever they’d like to discuss.”
When Addis asked why the school system hadn’t been able to provide the financial information county officials asked for, Superintendent Lou Taylor said WCPS had provided additional information. He said he and Tolbert had met with Chief Administrative Officer Weston Young and Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Candace Savage.
“If the administrator would call us back and say we need additional things we’ll try to produce it,” he said.
Young, however, said a detailed request was submitted to Taylor and Tolbert on April 24th immediately following their meeting.
“This request was conveyed earlier from the county attorney to their board attorney,” he said. “What has been provided to us thus far only accounts for 4% of their budget, so hardly comprehensive. Further, we have been told that the amounts in each category are only estimates and no reflection of actual spending, so arbitrarily made up. We are confident our email request is clear and concise. They should consider it a Public Information Act request at this point.”
In a town hall meeting in Pocomoke last week, Commissioner Caryn Abbott told attendees that the commissioners fully supported teachers, support staff and bus drivers. She added, however, that all county departments presented line-item budgets.
“Without more information, it’s impossible to just give more money over,” she said.
Virgil Shockley, a former commissioner in attendance, said he wanted people to know that while there were some who said the commissioners were asking for an unprecedented amount of detail, that was not the case. He said that while he hadn’t received it, he’d asked for that same information when he was a commissioner.
“When the commissioners tell you they’re working with tight numbers, listen to them,” he said.
