Schools feeling budget crunch

By Leah Fabel
Examiner Staff Writer 8/21/08

Kids arrive at school on the first day of school for the 2007-2008 school year at Northview Elementary School in Bowie, Maryland on Monday, August 20, 2007. Greg Whitesell/Examiner WASHINGTON – The two largest school systems in the region with two of the tightest budgets expect their student populations to rise even as costs increase and government resources shrink.

Nearly every school system in the D.C. metro area saw significant reductions to its budget for the coming academic year, but few were more publicized than Fairfax County, where nearly all summer schools were wiped out, and Montgomery County, where long-anticipated middle school reform has been slowed and a prized magnet program has been cut to the bone.

And with only days before the start of the school year, officials are bracing for the possibility of more enrollees than initially projected, bringing Fairfax’s total to about 168,000 and Montgomery’s to about 138,000. First-week enrollment figures fluctuate significantly, though, as transient families settle.

In Fairfax, emergency funds for unplanned extra costs, like higher-than-predicted enrollment, come from a district reserve fund of about $8 million, said budget director Kristen Michael. The district uses bond referendums every two years to finance capital projects, but the next one isn’t expected until the fall of 2009.

In Montgomery County, the school district goes to the County Council for cash when its pockets run dry in an emergency.
This year, though, help will be requested from all sides, and likely concerning fuel.

“When we figured fuel into the budget, it was a crapshoot,” said Council President Mike Knapp. “I expect we’ll do something this year for [the schools] and county government for the additional costs.”

Knapp explained the county’s 6 percent reserve policy — hundreds of millions of dollars — steadies financial anxieties, but can’t stay flush forever.

“Given the fact that our budget next year is likely to be more difficult, people would be reluctant to go into reserves this early if we don’t have to,” Knapp said. “There’s a fairly high threshold given the difficult economic path.”

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