Roger Berliner

District 1

I believe the quality of our public schools directly contributes to our overall quality of life in Montgomery County - and that is why Montgomery County Public Schools is my number one budget priority.   I have heard from an overwhelming number of constituents who have told me they moved here because of MCPS's stellar reputation - a reputation that is entirely deserved and is a credit to our excellent educators and MCPS staff.  

I know that some members of the school community are disappointed in the decisions this Council made with respect to the MCPS budget.  As the parent of two MCPS graduates, I know first-hand what a world-class education our MCPS students receive.  Given the significance of this part of our budget, I shared my thoughts with you on it at some length (as is my habit) two weeks ago.  So, I will not go on and on now, but I will say that I think this Council did the best it could to achieve the necessary budget savings while minimizing potential cuts that will impact the classroom.  

I also think it is worth noting that the total tax-supported budget for MCPS is actually a $31 million increase over FY11.  This in a year when the budgets for other County departments and agencies are being further cut from their already significantly reduced levels.  MCPS has benefited from an influx of State Aid this year that our tremendous Montgomery County Delegation helped secure.  You should know that this Council always has and will continue to appropriate all state aid for education to MCPS.  This State Aid will protect MCPS from having to sustain the kind of reductions other departments and agencies are facing.

I want you to know that it is with the most careful consideration that I work through these decisions.  I understand that some of you still may be disappointed - but I do believe that a total budget that represents a $31 million increase over last year and that minimizes impacts on the classroom is a budget that fulfills our obligation to our MCPS students and one that preserves our world-class school system.

Besides education, I know that public safety is a primary concern in our community - and in fact, the public safety budget comprises 40.4% of our total County Government budget.  I believe my colleagues on the Public Safety committee and I made appropriate restorations to the County Executive's recommended budget that reflect this concern in a way that balances the need to make budget reductions while providing our public safety personnel with the resources they require. 

One such restoration I felt strongly about was the need to have our Bethesda Police Station open 24 hours a day.  The County Executive had recommended that it be closed to the public over night in order to achieve savings, and I am pleased that my colleagues supported my inclination that it is best left open during overnight hours.  We also restored funding for a Fire Recruit Class that is badly needed to address retirement and other staffing challenges.  I believe having this class in place will go a long way toward staving off personnel deficits and overtime costs.

Finally, we heard from many members of our school community that they consider School Resource Officers to be tremendously important.  I am pleased that the Council restored, to be funded out of the Police budget, six of these positions - one for each police district - so that their work of contributing to a safe environment for our students will continue.

There is perhaps nothing that gets under one's skin like sitting in traffic.  That is why it is crucial that we protect and expand our transit services in the County and we did just that in this year's budget.  As Chair of the Transportation, Infrastructure, Energy and Environment Committee (T & E Committee), I was pleased that the County Executive had not recommended any cuts to the County's Ride-On routes for FY12.  We were able to maintain all routes while at the same time, plan for a future countywide Bus Rapid Transit System that will provide new, attractive transit options for the County.  Sixteen routes throughout the County will be studied in the coming year taking us one giant leap closer to making Rapid Transit a reality in the region.

But not everyone is able to utilize mass transit; many of us rely on the extensive road networks in the County.  Our road infrastructure is in bad shape given the significant storms over the past few winters.  To address the enormous need for repairs and resurfacing, the Council increased funds by 600% compared to FY11 levels.  This will help our Department of Transportation repair potholes and continue their highly sought-out neighborhood road resurfacing program.

Other good news in the transportation budget included funding to restore the Kids Ride Free program, money to continue the County's efforts to make pedestrian crossings safer by extending the walk signal time, and additional funding for tree maintenance and tree removal.  In a difficult budget year, I was grateful to my colleagues on the T&E Committee, Councilmembers Floreen and Riemer) for their assistance in protecting these essential services.

I remain a strong supporter of Montgomery County Public Libraries (I had the privilege of serving as Lead for Libraries on the Council during my first year), and deeply regret that it has had to endure devastating budget reductions over the last several years.  I do believe that libraries are citadels of our civic life - part of what makes a community a community.  That is why I was particularly alarmed by the County Executive's proposal to further reduce staffing and services at Chevy Chase Library and other "neighborhood branches."

For that reason, I am quite pleased that my colleagues and I were able to add back in just over $2 million to the library budget.  Of that $2 million, $460,000 will go toward restoring information staff at these neighborhood branches - and another $1 million will be used to purchase materials.  I believe this funding, along with the library system's talented and dedicated staff, will go a long way in preserving the County's library system that we so treasure.

There is perhaps no agency more important to the economic development and shaping of our County than the Planning Department.  It is in the able hands of the planning staff that master plans are drafted, forest conservation plans reviewed, and new projects are evaluated.  Without the Planning Department, economic activity in the County would come to a standstill and we could not plan for exciting new developments like the recently approved White Flint Sector Plan.   

In the past few years, the Planning Department's budget has been hit harder than almost any other department or agency in the County - suffering a 40 % reduction in staff over previous levels, yet charged with the same amount of work.  Accordingly, the Council restored approximately $1.5 million above the County Executive's recommended FY12 Budget which will allow the Planning Department to help keep our economy moving out of the recession by being able to conduct timely review of development projects, maintain their current work program of master plans and neighborhood studies, and get to work on amending our Master Plan of Highways to plan for a countywide Bus Rapid Transit System.

This year's budget will fund the expansion of our Department of Environmental Protection's stormwater management, environmental site design and water quality protection programs.  These actions should have a direct positive impact on efforts to clean up the Chesapeake Bay. 

In addition, the County's new bag fee legislation will go into effect in January and is expected to raise $200,000 that will be deposited in the Water Quality Protection Fund.

I have been seriously concerned that the County was neglecting the protection of the tree canopy found on the County's right of way and thus is the responsibility of the County to protect and maintain.  Budget shortfalls in prior years necessitated significant cuts to this program.  Given the need to protect the lives and limbs of our citizens and to do our part to eliminate tree debris from disrupting utility performance it became prudent to move funds from the Street Tree Protection fund that engages block preventative pruning and use some of these monies for tree removal.  The County's back log of requests for removal of dead trees from the County's right of way had reached 1300 and counting.   $350,000 was shifted from the block pruning budget and an additional $350,000 was added to insure that dead and dangerous trees can be dealt with more quickly.

In order to continue a number of important efforts by the WSSC not the least of which is an aggressive large diameter water main inspection, repair and acoustic fiber optic monitoring program Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission's charges were increased by 8.5 percent.  This will provided full funding for WSSC's FY12 operating budget and full funding for WSSC's FY12-17 Capital Improvements Program.  

Safety net services protect our County's most vulnerable residents from the worst effects of the economic downturn.  These are services I find to be among the most critical items in any year's budget, and this year was no different.   

The Council considers our Capital Improvements Program (CIP) biannually.  And while this is a CIP "off-year", no news is good news, as they say, for District 1 schools. All of our District 1 school CIP projects remain funded and on schedule.  To take a look at where your school's project stands, click here.   

I am pleased that these projects remain on schedule - these are the classroom additions, renovations, and modernizations that so many of our schools so desperately need to help ensure our students have the learning environment they deserve.  In the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Cluster, a "solutions project" at the middle school level was approved to be added so that the cluster is not subject to a building moratorium under the public school adequacy test.  A more specific PDF (project description form) for this project is expected to be completed for the FY13-18 CIP once MCPS concludes its feasibility study for the new middle school.  

The future North Bethesda Recreation Center is also in the "good news" category.  The County Executive, as an off-year CIP amendment, had proposed completely closing out the project.  I found this to be unacceptable for a community that has already waited too long for a project called for in their 1992 Master Plan.  For that reason, I wrote to my colleagues on the PHED Committee and asked that they reject the County Executive's proposal, and instead ask him to include funding in future years so that the project essentially remains alive.  I am pleased that the Council approved an amended PDF for the project that does just that - and I remain confident that, even though it has been a long wait, the residents of North Bethesda will eventually have an alternative to driving to Potomac or Chevy Chase. 

I want to thank the members of the Organizational Reform Commission (ORC) for their work over the past year.  I believe their efforts to identify ways in which the County can function differently will put us on a more sustainable path and will have a lasting impact on the way we operate.   

This Council has embraced many of the ORC's recommendations, with respect to arbitration, Maintenance of Effort, and liquor control.  One recommendation that we have embraced fully - moving the County's technology systems to "cloud computing" - will save $31 million.  Some recommendations the Council did not accept totally, but accepted in part in order to still achieve some savings.  There are certainly issues where the Council disagreed with the ORC - in considering 28 recommendations there were bound to be.  But even in areas where the Council arrived at a different point of view, the matters still received robust debate and honest consideration.  That in itself is valuable.  I believe their work was a critical part of our budget decisionmaking and I am most grateful for having had the benefit of it. 

As the Council comes down the homestretch of finalizing the Fiscal Year 2012 Operating Budget, you probably have heard a lot about and may even have been contacted about one of its most challenging aspects: the budget for Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS). I wanted to offer you my perspective on the matter, in real time, in the hopes of clearing up any inconsistencies you may have heard. I do hope that if you've got questions regarding the MCPS budget, you will find answers to them in this message.

I have received countless emails and phone calls in support of the MCPS budget - and rightfully so. I believe the quality of our public schools directly contributes to the quality of life we so value. Indeed, I've heard from an overwhelming amount of residents that they chose to live in Montgomery County in large part due to the outstanding reputation of our public schools - a reputation that is entirely deserved and that is a credit to MCPS's dedicated and talented staff. As the parent of two MCPS graduates, I know first-hand the excellent education our students receive.

I believe that each and every stakeholder involved shares a common goal: a world-class education for MCPS students and the continued success of our school system as a whole. Indeed, there is much we can and do agree on when it comes to our superb school system, and whatever differences we may have - almost exclusively with respect to funding - lie on the margins of our common commitment to our County's students. Regrettably, due to the weakened economy and issues of affordability, those differences have become more pronounced. Quite frankly, there's less money to go around but I continue to hold MCPS as my number one budget priority - and I believe my colleagues on the Council would agree.

Given that the MCPS budget is by no means a simple one - it is comprised of several distinct funding sources and impacted by complex state and county laws - it's no surprise that throughout the budget process, confusing data can reach the public and is easily spread through mailers, robo-calls, and emails. You have probably been the recipient of one or maybe all three. I believe that as your Councilmember, it is incumbent on me to present the facts in a way that considers the big picture - the same way my colleagues and I have to consider each decision we make.

Each year, the MCPS budget is largely comprised of funding from three sources: County, state, and federal dollars. (Other sources of revenue, like student activity fees and programs funded through private grants for example, comprise a small portion.) If you'll take a look at the chart below, which illustrates County, state and federal funding over the last nine years, you'll see that County funding of MCPS continued to increase through 2009, was essentially flat in 2010, and for the first time fell in absolute terms in FY2011.

Source: FY03-FY07 figures from the Office of Legislative Oversight's Report "Key Fiscal Indicators for Montgomery County Public Schools" (2007), found here; FY08-FY11 figures from the MCPS website here.

In examining this data, you may wonder how it is that the County's funding of MCPS has been characterized differently. If you forgive the use of a pastry analogy, beginning in FY04 - when times were good and the County's coffers were flush with revenue - the "pie" that represented total County revenue started getting bigger and bigger. And while the "slice of the pie" that represented County funding allocated to MCPS increased, the size of the pie itself continued to increase as well - and at a higher rate. What does this mean? Well, if you were to use percentages to draw comparisons in year-to-year funding - instead of dollar figures - it would mean that the data could be characterized in such a way that makes it appear the Council's commitment to MCPS began to wane in 2004. I for one do not believe that to be the case, and that the total funding figures simply do not support that view. Moreover, it's useful to note that since FY03 until FY11, the BOE has received at least 97% of their funding request. In FY03, FY05, FY07, and FY10, they actually received more than they asked for. See the chart below.

There's also concern that the Coucil intends to "divert" or "misuse" State Aid for education. MCPS has been very fortunate in recent years to receive full formula funding of State Aid, and I assure you that the Council has always and will continue to appropriate all State Aid for education to MCPS. We are grateful for the hard work of our Montgomery County Delegation in Annapolis in securing these dollars. In speaking with members of our Delegation, I have found them to be sympathetic to the circumstances, understanding of the County's economic situation, and supportive of the decisions this Council has made in terms of funding MCPS. In fact, the influx of State Aid has protected MCPS from the worst of the budget reductions in the past three years that other County departments and agencies have faced. The first year that total MCPS funding decreased was FY11, in the midst of the Great Recession, by approximately 1%. The same year, the Montgomery County library system experienced a decrease of 23%; the Parks Department 16%; the Department of Recreation 15%. MCPS has benefited from State Aid like no other County agency or department has - and the same will be true this year as well.

As most of you may know, in order to be eligible for an increase in state aid, the county is required to fund schools at a Maintenance of Effort (MOE) level. This requirement, one which our County has exceeded regularly, requires funding to increase significantly even in the midst of a great recession. We have fought unsuccessfully in Annapolis to amend the law to recognize that there should be some flexibility when revenues are plummeting and when cost saving measures are both appropriate and necessary. Having failed to obtain any flexibility, the County decided not to seek a waiver from the law and instead face a potential penalty in FY13. I say potential because we may still obtain relief from the rigidity of the law. Even assuming there is a penalty in FY13, it will be up to the Council then to determine how the penalty should be allocated. It is an open question as to whether, and to what extent if any, this penalty would be borne by the school system. Our decision not to seek a waiver will allow us to put our school budget on a much more sustainable path, and should permit us to meet MOE in the future.

That brings us to the present day. All Councilmembers agree that reductions that impact the classroom should be miniimized - and I am pleased that outcome is achieved by the Education Committee's recommendations made yesterday morning. The EducationCommittee, chaired by Council President Ervin, who is herself a former member of the Board of Education, proposes making several reductions to the MCPS Maintenance of Effort budget that would not have a programmatic impact.

· Reducing employee "step increases", which are salary icreases employees receive every year for longevity. Elimination of steps, in addition to cost of living adjustments (COLA), was a measure that all County agencies employed in FY11 and are likely to employ again in FY12 as a means of reducing expenditures. (All other County agencies actually went one step further and imposed employee furloughs in addition to eliminating COLAs and steps in FY11 - the Board of Education did not see fit to make the same imposition on the school system's employees however.) Eliminating MCPS employee steps represents a reduction of $28 million.  

· The Committee also recommends reducing the OPEB (Other Post-Employment Benefits) allocation by $27 million, which is identical to the County Executive's recommendation. This step does not impact actual teacher salaries or pensions.

One of the other Education Committee recommendations deals with MCPS employee benefits. The effects of the Great Recession have forced both the County Executive and this Council to consider employee benefits for not just MCPS, but for all County agencies, in a way that we have never had to before - and I consider these decisions to be among the most difficult of the difficult decisions. The County Executive included in his budget recommendations that would have significantly increased the share of health care costs expected to be shouldered by non-school employees. These changes would equate to roughly $5,000 less in take home pay for our employees next year - a burden that I continue to believe was more than we should or could expect our employees to bear on top of all the other sacrifices we have asked of them.

However, that impact on take home pay can be greatly ameliorated if the sacrifice is shared, at least in part, by all County employees - not just our policemen, librarians, Ride-On drivers, and so forth. To that end, the Education Committee recommends reducing funding in "Category 12, Fixed Charges", the MCPS funding category that deals with employee benefits, by $18.7 million. That amount is equivalent to the savings achieved if the Board of Education asks its employees to contribute another 5% towards the cost of their health insurance and if pension reforms equivalent to those made by the state are adopted. With respect to the health care costs, currently, most school employees only pay 5% of their health insurance premiums. By contrast, other Montgomery County Government employees - police, librarians, Ride-On drivers, firefighters, social workers, etc - contribute 20% or more to their health care premium. This disparity has long been a bone of contention for our non-school employees and this proposal moves towards greater equity. This is another structural change that has my support. Finally, the Education Committee recommends an overall reduction of approximately 1%, reductions that could, depending on the choices made by the Board of Education, directly impact the classroom. This amount, as shown below, is almost idntical to the reductions proposed by the County Executive, reductions that the Board of Education characterized as "balanced" as recently as May 17^th.

While I wish that we were in a position to fully fund the MCPS budget, I would highlight that only $27.9 million - or approximately 1% of the Board's request - might impact the classroom, depending on the BOE's allocation. As I said earlier, my colleagues and I continue to believe there may be alternative approaches to achieving these savings that should not affect the classroom, and we are still considering how to allocate this reduction by categories to minimize the impact on the classroom.

Finally, it should be noted that even though the Council has had to make tremendously difficult decisions regarding the school system's budget, MCPS's total tax-supported budget as it stands now is an increase of $31 million over its FY11 tax-supported budget. I believe the following chart, that represents the percentage change of agency budgets FY09-11 and the County Executive's recommendation for FY12, is a compelling illustration of the commitment this Council has demonstrated to our school system during a time of unparalleled economic downturn.

I want you to know that it is with the most careful consideration that my colleagues and I work through these sets of issues. We take none of these decisions lightly, especially when it comes to MCPS. I do believe that a total budget that represents an increase over the prior year's funding and that minimizes impacts to the classroom is a budget that fulfills our obligation to our students and one that preserves our world-class school system.