For Immediate Release: Thursday, May 18, 2023
Montgomery County Councilmember Kristin Mink made the following statement about the Fiscal Year 2024 Operating Budget and the Amended Fiscal Year 2023-2028 Capital Improvements Program. The Council’s final vote on the capital and operating budgets for Montgomery County is scheduled for May 25.
Below is Councilmember Mink's full statement:
Today, I voted against the property tax and operating budget for two reasons: I do not believe they provide our school system with the resources needed to succeed, and I have deep concerns about the process that landed us here.
The County contribution to MCPS will increase by roughly 8.5 percent over last year, which is substantial, but in this time of unprecedented growth and need, many County department budgets are increasing by more than 10 percent. As with nearly every department that came before us, MCPS started with an aspirational request and eventually let us know the minimum needed to:
This body decided not to meet that minimum, with the expectation that MCPS can find tens of millions of dollars in unplanned cuts to their existing budget. It’s a big gamble. What we don’t want is students next year having it worse than students this year, and I think that is a likely outcome.
All Councilmembers have noted that MCPS will have the funds to pay for the employee contracts, and they must do so. The problem is, MCPS has never claimed they wouldn’t have the money in the bank to cover contracts. They’ve said with this budget, they can’t fund contracts without sacrificing class sizes or making other cuts that will significantly impact the classroom.
We have record numbers of students living in poverty, receiving special education services, and learning English as an additional language. Enrollment is now growing at 2000 students per year. We rely on MCPS not only to educate our children but as a critical part of our healthcare delivery system, our workforce development plans, and our touchpoint for families struggling with food insecurity and other critical issues. And we are bleeding staff.
I think it would be reasonable and right to ask residents to pay a slightly higher property tax rate in order to fund more of the MCPS request, and I think most residents would have supported that.
I am also committed to working with MCPS and the Board of Education, as well as using the full extent of the County Council’s jurisdictional powers under state law, to institute reforms that ensure the Council and public have a clear understanding of how dollars are being spent and why, and that we are better positioned to make fully informed assessments in future budget seasons.
I also want to share my concerns with the drafting process for this budget. There was a public process, but there was also a private process.
The weeks-long public process was robust and transparent, consisting of public hearings, numerous worksessions, and substantive dialogue between the Executive Branch, community stakeholders, and Councilmembers. We made many hard decisions as a body to cut tens of millions of dollars in spending and eventually designated 176 items as High Priority new investments, which many quite reasonably believed meant the items would be funded.
There was then a private process, compressed into three days, in which we made significant cuts to the items that had just been publicly deemed High Priority. There was very little space for meaningful discussion with colleagues, and none of it in public.
The disconnect between what transpired publicly and the final reconciliation list deeply troubles me. I do not believe this kind of process will result in the optimal budget for our County nor an understanding from our constituents as to how we came to these impactful decisions.
As has been said, to fund all of the items we publicly agreed were High Priority during the public process would require a 5.7-cent property tax increase.
In order to get to 4.7, the Council quietly cut new Vision Zero pedestrian safety items, new funding for the Green Bank to accommodate their expanded mission, positions responsible for implementing parts of our Climate Action Plan, increased funding for overflow sheltering to accommodate an unhoused population that has increased 53 percent over last year, increased but still insufficient inflation offsets for our nonprofit partners who provide vital services to residents, and much more. All of which we had just voted, after public discussions and with public votes, to identify as High Priority.
I strongly believe any changes to that list should have been done collaboratively and in the view of the public.
I look forward to the work ahead. I know our full Council shares goals and values, and I share the belief that next year, together, we will be in a better position to take on an even tougher budget.
## # #
Release ID: 23-187