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.
Dear Readers,
The very short version of this is that the school system tried to be vague and only clarified about 4-5% of what the County Commissioners requested. At that point, the game came to an abrupt halt with the Commissioners only funding the MOE as required.
Lesson Learned?
Regards,
Paladin
The Wicomico County Board of Education is full of all talk RINO’s! The Board of Education consists of 5 Republicans and 2 Democrats and the 5 So-Called Republicans votes for a RINO and a Democrat to lead the Board of Education! What the Hell were they thinking?? The citizens elected a majority of Republicans to lead the BOE. Look at this!!
“ In the Wicomico County Board of Education’s annual reorganization in December, Board members re-elected N. Eugene “Gene” Malone Jr. as the Board Chairman and Allen C. Brown, Sr. as the Board Vice Chairman.”
This is absolutely disgusting and all 5 of the Republicans need to be ousted by the Republican Party! Bonnie Ennis’ husband is an elected member of the Wicomico County Republican Central Committee and he allowed her to vote for a Democrat! Maybe Mr. Ennis needs a little talking to by the State Republican Party!