I viewed Jan Gardners LTE in the FNP this morning with great interest. She outlines her plans for her first 100 days in office. I am only going to address her comments on education and will let others address the rest. Here are her comments My vision for Frederick County includes world-class schools. We know that excellent public schools lift our students, our families, our property values, and will secure our long-term economic prosperity. We have one of the best school systems in the country, but our schools are at risk due to years of funding at the bare minimum required by state law. Minimal funding by the current administration has resulted in overcrowded classrooms and out of date technology. I will work collaboratively with our Board of Education to develop an outcome-based plan for the next four years, with a focus on keeping highly qualified teachers in our classrooms and providing up-to-date technology and materials of instruction. By eliminating an unneeded position, I will add an education liaison to maintain a strong working partnership with all our education partners. Strong schools equal a strong community. First off, I see no specific plans, how much is she going to increase funding. Her comment that minimal funding has caused overcrowding also fails the reality test. Funding for classroom seats comes through the capital budget and not through the operating budget which is what she claims has been funded at MOE. This board of BOCC has actually increased their spending on Capital projects speeding up the building of the new North Frederick Elementary, an addition at Oakdale Elementary, an addition at Urbana Elementary, the new Frederick High and they have increased funded for the long list of systemic projects that we have. Why is the list so long? Not because of the past 4 years but because of poor budgeting and funding of previous administrations in the past. These past 4 years we have worked at putting a dent in the list. The second thing she says is that low funding this past 4 years has lead to out of date technology. Lets look at the real facts. When April, Jimmy and I were elected to the BOE 4 years ago, the budget for technology was $0!!! Yes $0! How is that possible? Because previous boards had spent the money elsewhere and had ignored it. We immediately started to correct that situation by putting technology back in the budget. We could not do everything that we wanted because the budget had been left in such bas shape. We went to the commissioners and asked for help and they stepped up by providing one time funding to replace all the communication radios in our buses, providing funding to install wireless Internet in all our schools and this year we provided tablets to all our middle schools. So neither of these accusations by her hold water! In regard to the education liaison, much has been said about Billy Shreves attendance this past year, it was even an FNP article. I will say that while I dont always agree with Billys ideas, Billy attended our BOE meetings regularly and always gave feedback from the BOCC and suggestions to help us until he was shut down by our chair and basically told to keep quiet. If that is what we expect from the liaison, why should they be there? We need a change in our boards leadership to make the liaison welcome and feel a part of the process. She brings up salaries. This board has worked to give salary increases to make sure we are competitive. In the last 4 years our staff have received 2 steps, equivalent to about 3.5% each, a 1.1% COLA plus $105 this year, and some one time money another year. While we would like to do more, the economy has been tough and we have been able to not lay off any employees and maintain an outstanding benefits package. Finally I will add that thanks to our state leadership, this BOCC has also had to pick up the costs of our employees pensions, this was an unexpected but costly additional demand on our counties budget. Words are easy to say, but its tougher to back those words up with the facts!
Posted on: Sun, 21 Sep 2014 13:19:37 +0000