The St. Mary’s County Board of Education has added more than a million dollars to the amount set aside for salary increases for their employees in their proposed budget. That amount in the budget was increased from slightly more than $3 million to $4.3 million. The new amount is the approximate equivalent of a two-percent Cost of Living (COLA) increase and one step increase. The old amount only covered enough for a one-percent COLA.
St. Mary’s County School Superintendent Dr. Michael Martirano continues to insist the amount of salary increases in the budget is “fluid” because the negotiations between the school system and their three bargaining units are still ongoing. The extra amount in the budget is referred to as “possible negotiation costs.”
At a school system budget hearing two weeks ago many among the dozen school teachers, administrators and other workers who testified complained about not getting their normal step increases every year since 2010 and urged the superintendent to put in the budget two STEP increases instead, plus the one-percent COLA. That would cost $4.9 million.
To pay for the increased amount for the employees and for several other increases since the hearing the school board agreed on their regular meeting on Wednesday to reduce the request of the county to provide every student with a laptop computer. They are now asking that the county fund $2 million of the first year of a four-year rollout and that they use part of the county’s fund balance to do so. The original request was for $4 million next fiscal year.
The board at Dr. Martirano’s request also removed from his budget several new positions, including a Public Information Officer. That position has been vacant for several years. They also changed a Supervisor of School Psychologists position to a school psychologist and moved to grant funding 1.5 Special Education positions.
Also eliminated was the request to move one bus driver and two bus aides from contractual to full-time status and also did some shifting to make a Foreign Language teacher fulltime.
The total budget request for Fiscal Year 2015 is 202.1 million of which $101.6 million would come from the county. The request for the county’s general fund appropriation is $11.6 million above the current level of funding.
Martirano noted that he has been given no indication how much the county commissioners will allocate this year for schools. School Board Chairman Dr. Sal Raspa said, “We have done great things with less,” noting that the board had saved the county money in the process.
But, Dr. Raspa and several other board members pointed to the fact
