The Board of Education of Anne Arundel County tonight adopted Fiscal Year 2025 operating and capital budget requests to forward to County Executive Steuart Pittman for consideration as he develops the county’s overall budget for the coming year.
The Board made several changes to the operating budget recommended by Superintendent of Schools Dr. Mark Bedell in December, among them adding an additional 2 percent cost-of-living adjustment for all employees effective on January 1, 2025. Adjustments were also made to reflect proposals contained in Gov. Wes Moore’s recently released FY2025 budget.
Additionally, the Board reallocated funding for 18 instructional staffing positions to special education and English Language Development to provide increased supports to students.
The Board also made one addition to Dr. Bedell’s capital budget request before adopting it.
OPERATING BUDGET REQUEST
The changes adopted by the Board increase the operating budget request by $7.7 million from the amount proposed by Dr. Bedell in December. The Board’s $1.72 billion operating budget request is 4.17 percent – $68.9 million – more than the current year’s budget. It allocates $69.5 million for additional compensation for employees, sufficient for a step increase for all eligible employees, a 3 percent COLA for all employees effective July 1, 2024, and a 2 percent COLA for all employees effective on January 1, 2025.
In all, the budget request asks for 198.2 positions, inclusive of the 126.5 needed to fully staff the new Severn Run High School and Two Rivers Elementary School. Both schools are scheduled to open in August.
The budget requests more than 28 positions to address needs required by the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future. It also includes 32 positions – inclusive of the positions reallocated by the Board tonight – for special education programs across the county.
CAPITAL BUDGET REQUEST
The Board’s $234.9 million FY2025 capital budget request contains construction funding for three major secondary schools that begin the final phase of the Old Mill feeder system project.
Nearly $167 million – 71.2 percent – of the Board’s request is contained in construction funding for a new Center of Applied Technology – North, a new Old Mill High School, and a new Old Mill Middle School North. The projects follow completed replacement buildings at Quarterfield and Rippling Woods elementary schools and in-progress construction of a new Old Mill Middle School South and Severn Run High School. When complete, the new CAT-North building will be on the same site as the new Old Mill High School facility in Millersville, while the new Old Mill Middle School North building will be situated on the current CAT-North site.
Prior to adopting the budget, the Board added $350,000 to fund, subject to final design approval, a project proposed by Arundel High School students in May 2023 that would change space in the lowest floor of the three-story building into gender-neutral bathrooms and changing areas.
NEXT STEPS
The Board’s requests will be forwarded to County Executive Pittman, who will consider them as part of the overall Fiscal Year 2025 budget recommendation he will deliver to the County Council in May. The Council will hold public hearings before finalizing a budget by June 15.
The Board is scheduled to adopt a final budget on June 18, 2024.