Good evening everyone. This is the Council's second budget public hearing in which we will hear testimony for the fiscal year 2026 executive proposed education operating budget that was presented on April 21st, 2025. This evening is a hybrid meeting which is being conducted in person and via WebEx teleconference. It's also available to the public through live stream on the county council website and broadcast on channels 44 Verizon and Comcast 99 and 1071. Sign up to testify tonight. Sign up to testify on the fiscal year 2026 executive proposed education operating budget That is the subject of this public hearing was done online and was available in person prior to the start of this session The cutoff for testimony sign up was 6 p.m. This evening The council will hold various work sessions for the fiscal year 2026 capital and operating budget Agendas can be found on the council's. Please check our website regularly for updates for the various budget sessions taking place in April and May. At this time, I'm going to do a roll call of the council members. Vice Chair Jones. Good evening, everyone. Ms. Young. Good evening and welcome to all of you. Miss Rigby. Hello, good evening. And I am here and Chair Walsh is on her way. Before we begin this evening's proceedings, we will recite the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, individual with liberty and justice for all. Okay, so we'll now proceed with the public hearing. If there are any students who will be testifying this evening, for those in person, please come up to the front rows so we can call you up to testify first. And for those virtually, please contact Isaiah Anderson by raising your hand on the WebEx. We're sending him an email to I Anderson, that's S-O-N, Anderson, at howardcountymd.gov. This is to allow students to testify first so they can get home in a reasonable time. Please note that we will, that we are receiving testimony this evening, but we will continue to receive written comments, which will be fully considered by the council prior to taking action. Anyone who signed up to testify at this hearing will be called to testify. When you are called upon to testify please state your name in the city or town of your home address. Representatives from nonprofit organizations will have up to five minutes to speak. Individuals and other organizations have up to three minutes to to gather testimony. Individuals who have indicated they are testifying through an interpreter may be allowed a total of five minutes with interpreter translation. You may not yield your time to another speaker. You'll be notified at the 32nd mark to begin wrapping up by the administrator and then you'll be notified when your time is up. You must conclude when your time is up. If you have written testimony, you may also email it to council mail all one word at howardcali-md.gov. Okay, any students here that are signed up to testify? We have a few on the list. What number? Number 12. Is she on? Oh, sit right off to the side for a second, but thanks. So, is Tessa virtual? T Test on here. Okay, anybody else virtual? 24. Okay. Okay. Scyche avias. Okay. Syshevias? Okay, good. Sorry, folks. Small writing, old eyes. So, if we can elevate Syshevias, are you there? Yes, I'm here. Okay, will you get the kick it off tonight? So when you are ready, you can start your testimony. Thank you. Madam Chair and members of the County Council. My name is Syiisa Vyas and I am an eighth grader at Folly Quater Middle School. I live in Maryland Clarksville. I'm here today to provide my testimony to this council with regard to county executives FY26 proposed budget, specifically as it relates to HCPSS. As a middle schooler who will be attending high school this fall, I'm concerned about the financial state of our school system. On one hand, most of our school infrastructure, including buildings and systems, are approaching 15 years or more of lifespan. On the other hand, our school system and many across the country are under the cloud of increased funding uncertainty from federal and state sources. Madam Chair, I request you not to put our school system or any elements of it on the chopping block as our county feels increased financial pressures. We always say that education is the most important public service our organized civic systems provide to the residents. Why then should we put education on the chopping block every time financial pressure increases? I'm looking forward to attending Riverhoe High School this year, but I'm not sure if there will be many resources left for me to depend on when I need them the most. For example, college and career readiness programs, academic excellence and enrichment programs such as GT, athletic and arts programs, and so on. I am very interested in volleyball as a sport and it may surprise you to know that FQMS has only one sports team in the entire school which is basketball. I agree with many adults when they claim that middle school and high school are the formative years of our lives, where academic and extracurricular activities are equally important for our development into productive and contributing members of the society. I request you to do everything you can to to provide the required and requested funding to the BOE FY26, even when Dr. Ball has proposed not to meet BOE's funding request. In middle school, we have been taught to understand and practice many fiscal responsibility principles. One such principle is a rainy day fund. It would shock you to learn that the superintendent has proposed to put only 0.62% of total budget into the fund balance. Unless you provide BOE the requested funding, they will not be able to maintain a healthy fund balance. I am only 14 and just had my very first paycheck a few months ago and I've already got multiple lectures from my parents about putting at least 10% of my paycheck in savings account. I understand that for a large school system like ours, 10% savings may be a luxury, but don't you think 1% of total budget is for school or your school? After all, that is required by BOE's own policy 4070. I request the members of this council to provide BOE with at least 70% of funds requested requested by the BOE above the MOE so money can be allotted to the fund balance and many programmatic and non-programmatic HCPSS priority can be funded. Thank you. In conclusion, I request the county leadership to help the BOE in providing more for our student body, not less. More academic and non-academic programs, more options to engage with the rest of society, more for our academic and extracurricular endeavors, more financially secured academic environment, and most of all, more opportunities for us to develop into productive and contributing members of this society. Thank you for your time and have a good night. Thank you Miss Vias. Who is next? So, ready for. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All. My man right here. Perfect. Thanks for waiting. You're going to hit the green button on that microphone and start when you're ready. Thank you. Good evening distinguished members of the council. My name is Henry Armas and I'm a proud junior at River Hill High School. Today, I'm speaking not just on behalf of myself but on behalf of thousands of students whose futures depend on the decisions made in this room. Last year alone, my high school lost 17 teachers. 17 passionate educators gone because the budget could not sustain them. And still, my classmates and I have made the most of it. We have squeezed into full classrooms. We have waited patiently for extra help from teachers stretched thin. We have adapted, but make no mistake, we are not thriving. If the proposed budget goes through, the situation will become even worse. Larger class sizes will make it even harder for teachers to give students the attention they need. Students will fall through the cracks, not because teachers don't care, but because they physically cannot be everywhere at once. Programs that enrich our education from music to clubs to AP courses will be put on the chopping block. Our experience as students and our futures as members of this community will be directly and negatively impacted. I am already set to lose one of my teachers this year if this budget is not improved. It's painful to imagine that the person who has stayed after school through lunch periods and after school to help us countless times who pours the heart into our letters of recommendation who gave up their weekends to sponsor our clubs could be gone. And if this is how I feel about losing just one teacher, I can only imagine the heartbreak, rippling across our whole entire school system as we lose even more. Our teachers are warriors. They create stellar curriculums over the summer. They spend late nights grading papers, mentoring students, beyond the classroom, and do it all while being under-compensated and overstretched. The very least we owe them is stability. Right now, we are struggling to even provide that. But there is a better future within reach. If you choose to fully fund education this year and this year's budget, you will not just preserve in classrooms. You will be investing in smaller class sizes, a better academic outcome, and a stronger, more connected community. You will be standing up for Howard County's children, for your children, for our futures. Education is not just another line at a minisprech. It is the foundation of every vibrant thriving community. We need your help. And without it, we will continue to lose teachers, lose opportunities, and ultimately lose the excellence that has defined Howard County Public Schools for generations. Help us sustain a future we all deserve. Thank you. Any more students? Mr. Anderson? Okay. So we go to the top of the list with our grown-ups and Aikens, President and CEO of Howard County Library System. Thank you so much for your long time support and for the opportunity to testify on behalf of Howard County's residents who value the education for all ages provided by our library. And thank you so much for coming to battle over the books this past Friday night. More than 1700 students along with their coaches and parents came to marry whether to celebrate reading and more than 200 community members volunteered their time for this community event. What an incredible testament to the library team and our residents. The county executives proposed operating budget outlined several priority areas including ready and successful students and two, a thriving and healthy residents. Our strategic plan aligns with those priorities by focusing on these three key areas. All children enter school ready to learn with an emphasis on ages birth to three. Teens and young adults feel a sense of agency and belonging and an inclusive connected community where everyone feels they belong. The proposed budget enables us to move forward in these areas. Our operating budget request includes an increase to provide COLA and step increases for our team. As you know, providing competitive salaries is critical to retaining and recruiting staff who are essential to moving our strategic priorities forward. Our instructors teach the most classes and have the highest class attendance of any public library in Maryland. With our community borrowing 7.4 million items last fiscal year we have the second highest per capita borrowing rate in the state. Our budget request includes a small increase to fund anticipated publishing increases in materials as well as anticipated increases in the use of materials in all formats. We also request a modest increase to support our commitment to developing our team, including training on new technologies and operational models, equipping them to provide high-quality instruction efficiently and effectively and a rapidly changing environment. In Howard County we are fortunate to serve a community that believes in and supports the educational and societal values libraries provide. In these challenging times, we will continue to operate efficiently to return the highest value to our community. I respectfully ask you to invest in the thousands of children, teens, adults, and seniors who value and use our libraries every day by fully funding the county executive's budget request. Thank you so much for your consideration. Thank you, my second. Next up, next up from the Library Board of The trustees is Miss Elizabeth Bannock. Good evening, Chair, walls, vice-chair, Joe's and members of the county council. I am Liz Bannock, Chair of Howard County's Library Systems Board of Trustees. Thank you for the opportunity to testify on behalf of our library system and how our strategic plan aligns with the county executive's budget priorities. As our president and CEO, Tonya Aikens mentioned in her testimony last week, libraries are uniquely situated to prepare children for kindergarten because before young ones ever step foot in school, they attend classes and libraries. The number of words heard by a child during the first three years of life can dramatically affect language development. So our instructors teach classes for infants, toddlers, and their parents and caregivers mapped to common language standards. Students who lack behind their peers in kindergarten are challenged to catch up, and that gap often grows throughout their 12th career. For teens, their middle and high school years are critical for social and emotional development. At the library, our teen specialists work with teens to plan activities like teen live, which attract hundreds of students who come to the library where they connect with others, build community, enhance their social skills, and feel a sense of belonging. Emerging adults face a variety of challenges, including employment, financial literacy, physical and mental health, and social isolation. In April, we hosted the Maryland Emerging Adults Summit, which focused on how libraries can support 18 to 25 year olds as they navigate early adulthood. As engines of opportunity, public libraries provide free access to job training. Financial literacy classes, mental health resources, technology, and social connections. We also create safe spaces for young adults to build the skills and compass they need to navigate adulthood successfully. Through our Project Literacy Initiative, we provide workforce development skills to help residents thrive. One of those residents is Martin, a successful small business owner who immigrated to the United States of the Teen. He put his own formal education on hold to focus on his family and landscaping business. After supporting his three children through college and being inspired by his wife earning her master's degree, Martin decided to prioritize his own education. He entered our national external diploma program and he worked tirelessly to earn his diploma in just six months. For people with special needs, beyond words, this is a six series of monthly classes planned in collaboration with teens and adults and their caregivers. These classes consist of stations tailored to different abilities. Stations feature motor skills, arts and crafts, cognitive skills, movement and sensory activities. At first offered only at our Miller branch, Beyond Words, is expanded to the East Columbia branch due to demand. Our Global Neighbors series celebrates our county's diversity and highlights the rich cultural heritage of our neighbor's home countries to foster better understanding of each other and help everyone in the community feel seen, heard and celebrated. Through short presentations, food, displays and entertainment, attendees increase their understanding and appreciation of others' cultures. Our next global neighbor's events is this coming Sunday afternoon at our Miller branch from 2-4. We invite you to join us. These are just a sampling of the many ways we are working to realize our vision to create an inclusive, connected community where everyone feels they belong and where our county residents thrive. This is the basis for our work and we ask you to invest in our entire community from babies to seniors by fully funding the county executive's budget request. Thank you so much for your consideration. Thank you. Good evening, councilmembers. My name is Michelle Schrom, and I'm a retired Maryland Public School teacher and an active member of Indivisible Howard County Maryland's education action team. I'm here to share testimony on behalf of the 1000 plus current members of Indivisible Howard County Maryland regarding the budget for HCP SS. As many people know, education funding is the largest item within the Howard County operating budget. The education line contains funding not only for local pre-K through 12 public schools but also for Howard Community College and the Howard County Library system and each of these arms of our educational programming are important and worthy of ample funding. But I'm here today to shine a spotlight on the critical need for full funding of the HCP SS operating budget for this fiscal year 2026. When we look at funding transfer local public schools over the past seven years, we can see that HCP SS's funding has declined as a proportion of the total county budget. In fiscal year 2019, HCP SS reached a high of funding as a proportion of the budget with 52.6% of Howard County's budget earmark for education. However, in all the intervening years, that percentage has slowly declined. This year, 2025, the percentage is down to 46.2, a 6.4% decrease over that time period. When we look at a budget as a measure of a community's priorities, we see that Howard County has been shifting their priorities away from education into other areas. Although Dr. Ball highlights each year's historic funding of the schools, the data shows that it's not nearly enough to keep up with the ever-changing and demanding needs of a world-class school system. Per pupil spending over the last 15 years has only increased $300 in $2 per pupil. However, many things have changed significantly over that time. Since 2018, Farms rates have skyrocketed 43%. English language learners have increased 32% and students receiving special education services have increased by more than 16%. Educating Howard County students is expensive when you want to maintain the high level of rigor, quality, and success rates that HCPSS prides themselves on. As we dig into these numbers, we need to look at why this is problematic. Howard County continues to promote our school system as a point of pride. However, our slow but short move away from robust funding has had consequences. Our special education programming has serious problems prompting a local news organization to do a multi-part series on the issues affecting students and staff. The school system has had to spend funds to bring in an auditor to try to identify and resolve the issues. The school system's test scores have been falling and reading a math, and the school system cannot hire and retain enough quality educators as we have over 200 vacancies. Howard County should not be shifting funding away from ACPSS but increasing our investment to ensure the future of our county is strong. The single most effective investment a community can make is the education of its children. Using purely and economic lens, the single best economic rate of return on investment is education. Based on recent research, there's a 13% return on investment of the community for early childhood learning alone. For individual students, the personal benefits of high quality education leads to higher lifetime earnings, earnings that will then be spent in the community through housing, spending, and taxes. Higher education rates result in lower unemployment rates, which boosts economic growth and stability for the whole community, and the overall economic growth in a locale. Funding quality public education is a net surplus for a community and builds a stronger economy along the term. HCPSS is not alone in the challenges of learning loss, changes in demographics, or teacher shortage, but we as a community have always strived of a strong academic environment in which all students can succeed. We cannot continue to provide this high level of achievement and meet every student's needs without fully funding the HCPSS budget request. Our Board of Education did their due diligence to get input from the community to the superintendent budget in order to propose requests that demonstrates the needs that HCPSS has today. Now this council must do the same. Will you say no to the needs of HCPSS knowing that factors like COVID have led to increased needs and that funding rates have led to decreased quality, knowing the turn oil and threats to cut valuable programs and staff members like we had last year. What is more important to our community than our children? If our budget is reflection of our values, then your vote puts your values on the table and all of us at Indivisible and in the community will see what you choose to prioritize. We urge you to refocus our budget on the future. Please fully fund HCPSS. Thank you. Thank you. Applause. Chair Walsh has arrived and I thought your long national nightmare would be over. Of me running the meeting, but she is going to share her voice so I'm going to call the next person who is Anthony DeBellock. Hi, good evening, Anthony. You've now been elevated. Feel free to unmute yourself and make in your testimony when you're ready. Good evening, Mr. Headers, sit in council. This is Anthony Debellon. Do you hear me loud and clear? Yes, we can. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you very much. So budget decision is always a vote of tough choices and balancingoke tough choices and balancing this year's ever growing needs against those resources that never seem to grow as quickly makes this year no different. This year an additional $74 million are necessary to meet the same need for Howard County Public Schools his last year. The four major sources of that increased need are illustrated in the graphic that I believe I emailed you as available via hand out that one of my friends has handed you. But this need is the very much unsurprising result of the gradual reduction in the percentage of growing available resources allocated to education. In the past few years, General Fund Revenue has been significantly augmented by prior years funds made possible by consistent budget surpluses which are not available for school system operating expenses. This year, spending affordability advisory commission has advised using less prior years funds. That is the only area of the county executives proposed budget with significant reductions. Every other area of the proposed budget continues its steady growth enabled by the growth and available recurring tax revenue. Consider the allocation to the schools, including associated that another post-employment benefit, relative to the recurring general fund revenues available for the schools. That is, the general fund budget without use of prior year funds not permitted for use in operating expenses. That analysis shows on the next page of the handout that I asked to be given to you, shows that despite the significant amount of new tax revenue allocated to public schools in the proposed budget, the proportion of available funds dedicated to the schools is still lower than at any time. Any apparent uptick in the proportion of general fund revenue dedicated to the schools is the result of decreasing use of prior funds by approximately $100 million. During an economic downturn in 2011, the county executive's budget book comments cited funding reductions from stake sources and how Howard County increased funding for education despite having to cut a corresponding amount from the rest of the county budget. Then Howard County was forced to furlough employees hold 200 county positions vacant and close offices over the winter holidays. The measures proposed by the County Executive for FY26 pale in comparison. The proposed level of funding for the schools for 2026 puts teachers and students at the forefront of county cost savings measures, hardly the way to demonstrate education as a priority. Asking county employees to increase their health care benefits contributions merely adds them to make almost the same 15% cost share as Howard County teachers do. General fund investment income has greatly exceeded budgeted levels for the past three years and that recurring revenue should be used to support current year education expenses rather than future pay go. The county council should include revenues such that an additional $10 million in investment income realized by the county can be used as the basis of restoring at least $30 million to the schools above the county executive's proposal. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next up is Miss Laurie Chin. After Miss Chin is going to be Mr. Schmidt and then Miss Mosley and Mr. Barnes. They want to get ready. Can you turn your mic on please? Good evening. My name is Laurie Chin, and I'm a Howard advocate for appropriate and aggressive funding for public education. Many people here tonight will highlight the extensive need for complete funding of the school system. They will highlight the slow, proportional decrease in funding for HCPSS over the past decade. They will highlight the need across the school system and the need for effective funding for public education. Many people here tonight will highlight the extensive need for complete funding of the school system. They will highlight the slow, proportional decrease in funding for HCPSS over the past decade. They will highlight the need across the school system based on shifting demographics, continued COVID recovery, and inadequate special education programming. I agree with all they're going to present, but I'm here to highlight our budget from a wider angle. Public schools are under attack in our country. From the quiet shifting of public money to private schools through voucher programs, to the outright attempt to dismantle the US Department of Education by the current executive branch. In recent history, we have not seen our government attempt to destroy the structures we depend on to educate our children to so distrust in the institutions of learning or to dismantle the laws that protect our student civil rights and access to special education like we are seeing today. We are at a critical juncture in our community where we need to decide if we are going to stand for the values we report to hold or if we are going to continue business as usual as if everything is fine. When they say all politics are local, local, this is what they speak of. You as our local elected officials are here to discuss our relatively small community budget, but that budget is a representation of what we value. Through the budget process, a community can demonstrate what they prioritize, value, and invest in. We have an amazing public school system, one that has been one of the best in the country, but I fear we are losing our edge. If you listen to educators and families, you hear stories of children and teachers who are being left behind. We cannot recruit and retain educators due to the crushing workloads and the non-competitive pay. Class sizes are ever increasing and the demands on teachers and students are never ending. And when we look outside our community and the whole of the public education system is being bombarded from all sides. Stop being inclusive, stop allowing kids to read books, stop telling truth in history, stop accepting the children for who they are. What is happening? This is not normal. You are in the unique position of putting some worries to rest. Tell our community that you value their children, that you will invest in not only the school buildings but the people inside them, that you will stand up to the outside pressures to capitulate and devaluating public education by standing up and saying no. We will fully phone the needs of HCPSS in 2025, 2026 and beyond. We will turn away from the federal government's misguided mandates and act in the best interests of all our students using the power allotted to us. By putting your time and your money into the most precious resource our children and our future, you can demonstrate to the world that Howard County does not rest on our laurels we work to earn them. Fully fund HCPSS's budget and demonstrate that Howard County is a place that values education as an investment in the people and the community you serve. Thank you. Next up, Mr. Benjamin Schmidt from HTEA. I'm going to ask for the council's patience tonight as I head to attend the funeral for a former teacher in Mentor this morning. Good evening members of the council. I'm Benjamin Schmidt and our teacher for 25 years and currently the president of the Howard County Education Association representing 6,300 hardworking members dedicated to and we have been working for the past year and we have been working for the past year and we have been working for the past year and we have been working for the past year and we have been working for the past year and we have been working for the past year and we have been working for the past year and we have been working for the past year and we have been chambers tonight because we're facing the exact same situation we did last year. The Board of Education finds itself staring down a $27.7 million whole that it needs to fill just to keep the lights on and honor its contractual commitments. It cannot close if it cannot close the gap the board will have few options that is to disposal to balance the budget, including raising class sizes again, reducing existing programs again, laying off staff again, reduce and or freezing pay increases again. As with many other departments and programs, the cost of running the school system continues to outpace inflation. That reality may be shocking, but it's completely unsurprising. Even though the school system receives additional dollars each year, The portion of the overall county budget, that is a good example of the cost of the even though the school system receives additional dollars each year, the portion of the overall county budget that the system receives has been on that the clients since Ken Oman was the county executive. Just think about that for a moment. As the percentage of the overall county budget re-received the creases, students' needs are increasing. In 2019, the county spent 53% of its budget on K-12 schools. In FY25, it's down to 46%. If ACPSS was funded at 2019 levels, the BOE budget would have 116 million more than it does now. Meanwhile, the county continues to earn interest on the balance of its own general fund. Last fiscal year, it earned an eye popping 43 million in interest payments alone. The budget office explains this away as due to unusually high interest rates. But everyone knows you don't earn interest unless you have money in the account. In Howard County's case, the account is full of unspenn income and property tax collections. How did it get this way? Every single year, the spending of affordability of I3C committee underestimates county revenues, and as a result, it underbudges and underfonds the school system. The good news is, there is another choice. You can reverse the systemic underfunding of the school system, and you don't have to raise taxes even though you could. For instance, like what they've accomplished in neighboring Montgomery County. Or you could do the same thing the council did in CB20-2025, which amended the county charter to use surplus revenue to pay for deferred school capital projects and use the excess funds in Pego to fund the school system. You may think those funds are one time only, but they aren't truly one-time funds if they continue to appear in Pego year after year after year. Now is the county council's turn. If you agree with the county executive and if you think that ACPSS should manage a budget it's given, then ask yourself this question and it will require some courage to answer which programs will you cut? How much will you raise class sizes? And are you willing to freeze educator pay during a national teacher shortage? Times of uncertainty call for unity and strong leadership. School advocates will not be divided and will not allow our programs to be pitted against one another again and again. Even if you're concerned about the impact of the federal workforce, it would be a great mistake to underfund the very school system that underpins the county's tax base. Please restore additional funding for the Board of Education's budget. However county cannot continue to state that education's a priority while our educators, parents, and students face yearly chaos and our board is forced to cut services every year. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Smith. Next up is Ms. Joly Mosley. If anybody missed that, this is Ms. Joley Mosley, Chair of the Board of Education. Yeah. It's very bright in here. Could you have a TV? You're far away. Sorry. Good evening. My name is Joley and I'm the Chair of the Howard County Board of Education. I'm here this evening on behalf of the board as well as the students, staff, and families of the Howard County Public School system. Public education remains a central topic of discussion in boardrooms, county, state, and national legislation, not only here in Howard County but throughout Maryland and the entire nation. Education continues to dominate both local and national headlines as more than 84 million families across the country advocate for the highest quality educational experiences for their children. Yet what we rarely hear and what we urgently need to hear is a collective voice declaring that public education is already fully equipped to succeed. It is not. While we made debate how success is defined or achieved, there is one point on which we should all agree. Public education must receive more thoughtful and sustained programming and investment, not less. The Board of Education has clearly identified the needs and priorities of our school system and our budget request to the county executive. While we understand that our request exceeded the maintenance of effort and may not be fully fundable, it was our duty to present an honest account of what our students, educators, and families need to thrive. We support the goals of the state, Bluefront, and Maryland's future, which reflects priorities. We also value, however, as we feared at its inception, the funding framework behind this landmark legislation of change fails to account for actual rising cost faced by local school systems as they navigate the changes, costs that are being further strained by inflation and economic uncertainty beyond our control. Put simply, the funding we are receiving is not sufficient to meet the changing mandates and expectations set upon us. Without the necessary support, we face difficult decisions, including larger class sizes, reductions in programs and course offerings, staff cuts, and the likely elimination of many, initiative prioritized in our proposed budget. These cuts can impact special education, school safety, athletic trainers, and other critical services that matter deeply to our community. Let me be clear, we do not place blame for these challenges on the County Executive or County Council. You're managing your own financial constraints, but we cannot ignore the very real and harmful consequences that under funding will have in our students, our educators, and the future of Howard County. This is not the reality any of us want. The board, the county executive, and the council all share a common goal to provide the best possible education for every child in our community. But these past two budget cycles have made that increasingly difficult. Instead of limiting what we can offer, we want to provide smaller classes, greater access to opportunities, stronger support systems, and better outcomes for every student. So tonight on behalf of the student staffs and family of Howard County, I respectfully urge the county council to restore as much of the board's requested budget as visibly possible. Every additional dollar you provide reduces the harm this budget could inflict, and strengthens our ability to deliver to the education our community expects and deserves. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Williams. Next up is Mr. Bill Barnes. After Mr. Barnes will be Yeehan and Brian Hall. Good evening Chair Walsh, Vice Chair Jones and the steam members of the county council. My name is Bill Barnes and I'm the proud superintendent of the Howard County Public School System. I'm here to request that the council consider the restoration of the Board of Education's requested budget. This winter I introduced a new strategic plan. And while additional funding is not necessary to achieve each and every goal and strategy in that plan, some funding certainly is required to achieve some of those goals. The board's proposed budget provided funding for increased compensation and benefits so that we could move closer to achieving our hiring and retention goals while honoring our amazing teachers, administrators, and staff. It provided funding for special education, so that we could increase the likelihood that our students achieve intended educational outcomes. Our teachers have the resources and supports they need because everyone is working together with the resources they deserve. And the budget included funding to increase the safety and security of our school system by adding full-time athletic trainers and other safety personnel. But like last year at this time, we find ourselves working to close a nearly $30 million funding gap between existing new revenue and the cost of existing commitments alone. These commitments include managing inflationary costs, cost to support Maryland's blueprint, and cost associated with compensation and benefits. When we agree, when we consider the other board priorities, like those I highlighted a moment ago, that gap grows to over $54 million. To fund just our commitments, we're going to have to engage in a process that first tackles that $29.3 million gap between new revenue and increased cost. We're going gonna have to reprioritize existing programs and staffing to make up the difference. And so, much to our Shagrin and frustration. Just like last year, we will be revisiting budget discussions, talking about class size increases, cuts to signature programs, and reductions to existing services. We will be weighing those highly valued programs against the full and total needs of the school system. And so we ask for your support. We ask that you restore as much of the Board of Education's requested budget as this fiscal possible. I do want to close by extending my gratitude to our broader team of elected officials, County Executive Calvin Ball, this County Council, and our Board of Education. I'm grateful for the continued support and collaboration with all of our elected officials as this designated group of community leaders prioritizes education. I want to extend the gratitude to the school system staff in attendance today. These amazing staff work every day to ensure that our students graduate with their dreams intact. And so I thank you in advance and I ask for your support for our students, our families and our staff. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Boyes. Come on back, Mr. President. Miss Young has a question. Thank you. Thank you for coming out tonight. And I do have just a couple of questions. You talked about basically three areas that the school district is short on. Increased compensation and benefits, safety and security, and was it special education? Special education. Special education. Could you just give us some idea of what you are short on, what kind of money you're looking at here? Is that for the 29.3 million that you're short on, the 50 million, how many millions? We and what are the priorities? And all of those that total up to $54, over $54 million were accounted for in my remarks. When we talk about those 29.3 million, we can isolate it to a cost of inflation, increases to items like insurance, mandated costs related to blueprint, and of course, those very important hiring and retention strategy of compensation and our recent agreements with some of our bargaining units. So those are the three things that are just focused on the 29.3, but there are, I listed very few of a number of important priorities that go extend beyond and get to the $54 million. So do you have a general idea of what the safety and security number is? No, but I'll be prepared to have that when we meet on Monday. Okay, Monday. Right, thank you. Any general idea on the hiring and retention number, the compensation number? Yeah, we have a pretty good sense of that. I mean, there's a budget marker. I don't wanna misspeak. I just saw this is an absolute approximation. There's about $38 million in available funding for all of our bargaining units to reach agreement with through the board. There's an additional funding requirements to support national board certification pay increases through Maryland's blueprint and there's an significant increase in the cost of insurance benefits for our staff, for all of our staff. So those are all things that we categorize as rising costs to employees. And what kind of inflationary pressures were you facing this year? Did everything go the same or were there some things that cost a lot more? Everything costs more. I know everything costs more. It's a lot more. It's a lot more. It's a lot more. It's a lot more. It's a lot more. It should cost even more than it costs now. Yes, it should. It's very, it's variable, different things rise at different rates. And I don't want to forget that last year, we committed almost $20 million of fund balance to as a strategy to balance the budget. And so the first $20 million we had to spend this year was on that and closing that meeting those commitments. And as I said last night, door board of education, what we wouldn't give for $20 more million right now. And so we'll look at the end of this process to balance the budget at existing fund balance, which is much much much much less. What is the existing fund balance? Less than $5 million the moment. And yet that's not enough to cover as our amazing student pointed out the board's policy for a 1% reserve. So it makes it difficult. You know, when we run over, cost increase, and we run over this time of year, it's helpful to have that fund that balance available and not already fully committed to recurring costs. Absolutely. And more to come on Monday, Monday. Okay. Thank you very much. Good. Thank you. It was sorry. Mr. Barnes. Sorry. Sorry. He's not like the public hearings we have. Don't anybody give me the ideas for tomorrow night. We're not doing this to you tomorrow night. No, this is really just a request for Monday. We have a supplemental transfer or appropriation where we're providing an additional 5 million before us in our legislative capacity. So I was hoping that we could also discuss that on Monday. Absolutely. And I've extended, I've reached out to council members today. And I want to also just invite you to connect with me or staff to help us understand what would be most helpful for Monday. Because unlike past years when you've had access to different scenarios, you're going to be meeting with us before we meet with our board to talk about how we might offset cost. And so I want it to be a useful time spent. And so we'll reach out to understand what your needs are and cost out whatever items or cost cutting measures you might want. We'll do our best to make that good time well spent. That would be great. And I do have some process suggestions if we want to avoid that for next year. Okay, that would be great. Thank you. Thank you. Everybody's hearing us talk about Monday. Monday is our council work session. So unlike a public hearing, we'll be sitting around in here or another room talking in detail about this stuff. So thank you. Anybody else from Mr. Barnes? All right. I'll wait till Monday. Next up. Well, well, no, I do want to ask this question, actually. Let him get up and walk back again. I just want other people to have time. Well, you know how important this is, right? I mean, and all the people who are here tonight know how important this is, too. And you know how much that at least some of us on this county council would like to help you. And how difficult it is given our charter and the way things work here in this county. So I'm wondering, are you still in any sort of negotiations at all with the county executive? I don't know, we categorize it in negotiation. It big partnership we you know I we work with them almost every day with their teams our budget teams working to look for different solutions to find additional and available funding strategies so yeah we're gonna continue to work there yeah I mean you know until until we adopt the budget at the end of the season so it is is, nothing's more important than our future. Great. And we see our future through the eyes of our children. Yes. And our teachers and our staff that support those students are future makers and their different makers. And so I'm very, I take this obviously very seriously. Been an educator for 30 years. And I know we all want what's best. And we didn't get ourselves into this situation. In a day, it's going to take great effort and strategy and process improvements to get out of it. And we're all learning what it means to deal with a funding season that's driven through flat enrollment for generation now, two generations we've had a spikes in enrollment and that met new dollars and it meant we could add and add and add and now we've experienced a couple years of flat enrollment. So no new dollars and yet we get $47.3 million more dollars where I have some colleagues in different parts of the state who only ever get made to survive for each and every year. And so I can't even imagine what that looks like. And so while we are need still a greatly outpaced what's available for funding right now and that's frustrating, you know, it's our collective challenge. You know, I'm grateful to have you, grateful to have our board, Graded grateful to work with our kind executive because, you know, I was commenting today. We are in a much better process and culture space than we were 15 months ago and I started acting superintendents. We make great gains and I'm looking forward to realizing some of those gains year over year. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you Mr. President. I do. True well. No, it's not for you actually superintend actually superintendent Barnes. I just want to make sure with the council administrator that we do have someone from the executive office lined up to be with us on May 5th on Monday because you're right. Miss Young, that's an important part of this whole process. And so hopefully someone who's able to speak and able to speak and represent the administration's position on this can be present. We will reach out. We know members of the budget office are available, but we'll reach out for Paul's. Okay, thank you. And I'm gonna make an unsolicited comment. Miss Mosley from the Board of Ed and Mr. Barnes, I mean, they have been handed a virtually impossible task. And this is going to be a hard month and I can tell you they are doing their best. The overall county budget's going down by a point and a half this year and the school systems is going up by four and a half and they still need three times that and they're not going to get three times that. So it is not because they are us or anybody doesn't care about things they are doing their best but we have a lot of mandates coming down from Annapolis without the promised money to back them up. And so thank you guys for as hard as you're working on this. Next up is Ihan. And after her will be Brian Hall. I could even yeet now been elevated. Feel free to unmute yourself and begin your testimony when you're ready. I'm going to name Castle Members. I'm Castle Iate. Thank you for the opportunity to speak in this evening. I'm glad to express my appreciation for the kind of executives proposed 5.1 increase in Operation Project for Public School. A mini-poor staff about roughly 3% increased in recent years. However, the proposed increase still fails to give an increase of the 100s and 7.3 million requests divided by the B.O.E. to make the system grow in need. At minimum, its CPSS required an additional 41 million to avoid reduction to existing student programs, as senior FI25 a proposal. Just as household across the country has experienced rising cost in utility insurance, already expense. So too has the HTPSS, not placing the increase include. 9.6 million is monitored by the blueprint of murder filter. 10.9 million is needed for found-files insurance for the educator's staff. 6.8 million addressing contractual obligations at adjustment to transportation services. 1.6 million is a monthly increased utility cost. That costs three million accounts for the year-over-year personal change. 3.8 million is required to maintain the competitive EPRINee compensation. But, per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per Moreover, special education remains in crisis. Each year, over 500 new students with disability in Europe, yet we are currently facing 114 veterans in special education positions. This publication now does not make it possible to fully deliver the mandatory service in them and it's also burnout staff. Alarmly, at 41% of 20 to 23% nations came from the first year special educators. The district is also increasingly exposed to legal vulnerabilities, damage from non-compliance with students IEP, resulting in the costly losses and non-public placements. The outcomes not only financially burdensome, but also deeply deeply distrusted to students and families. As you elaborate on the country's budget priorities, I urge you to consider the real ongoing impact of underfunding education. Not only on student and educators, but on a long-term stability of our public school system. 30 seconds. Thank you for your scientific time and attention. Thank you, Mr. Ron. Next up is Brian Hall. After Mr. Hall will be Board Member Chen. Brian Hall is our school system CFO. Correct. All right. Good evening, Council members. My name is Brian Hall, and I am the chief financial officer for Howard County Public School System. First, I'd like to just take a minute to acknowledge all of the teachers and educators that have filled the room tonight and the thousands of educators across Howard County that show up every single day for our students. When I took this position with the school system last summer, I knew very challenging budget process that the system and the county had endured last spring. Having been in a neighboring district at the time, I read the news stories and heard the conversations happening in our community. In fact, my prior district even benefited from staff who had to leave Howard County and seek employment elsewhere. Having now had time to see the school system budget from the inside, the impact of past decisions is having a detrimental impact at a time we simply can't afford it. the use of fund balance and one-time funds to cover reoccurring costs over $20 million in the current year has snowballed. The flawed funding design of the blueprint for Maryland's future is resulting in underfunded mandates. Inflationary and insurance costs have risen for the school system just as they have for the larger community. The state's $3 billion budget deficit is impacting the county and the school system in ways that result in very little flexibility. On top of that significant cuts to our central office last year resulted in our systems administrative funding, totaling just 1.3% of the total budget, far below other similar districts in Maryland. All in all, it appears that several political and economic storms have converged, and we must find a way to a balanced budget while limiting the impact on our students. As we have progressed through the budget process this fall and winter, I have been in close contact with County Executive Calvin Ball's budget team to understand the current fiscal environment and help clarify the needs of the school system. Well, we did not know the amount of funding that would be proposed for the school system until the county executive presented his budget proposal last week. We knew from everything happening at the state and federal levels that fully funding the school system's requested budget was going to be a challenge among the many competing priorities. As we shared with the Board of Education last night, in order to balance the budget and fully fund compensation without significant impacts to the services we are currently providing to our students, we need to close a budget gap of $29.3 million. Anything short of this will result in cuts to existing services for students. To provide a sense of the magnitude of these reductions and across the board class size increase of one student which we do not want to do, generate savings of a little over $6 million. So you can see the magnitude of the challenge with the $29 million funding gap. An anticipation of the reality that funding could be far short of what is needed to maintain our current service level, I have been working with the superintendent and members of his leadership team to begin considering options for closing this massive budget gap. Unfortunately, now we're having conversations we had hoped could have been avoided this year when we began the 2026 fiscal budget process last fall. Class sizes, program reductions, and decreases in staffing are all having to be considered. In the weeks ahead, the Board of Education and Staff are going to engage in difficult public conversations that will likely cause consternation among students, staff, and families. There is no good solution to overcoming a $29.3 million funding deficit. We have seen the decisions in neighboring school districts to raise class sizes to nearly 40 students per class, reduce many school-based positions, eliminate student opportunities, and reduce compensation for staff. We do not want to be in a position where we are realizing many or frankly any of these outcomes. I appreciate the County Executive's Budget Team and the collaborative approach they undertook during this year's budget process. And I truly appreciate the County Council's collaboration and desire to prioritize the school system as you continue to deliberate on the FY26 County budget. The challenge is faced by the County are significant. But the partnership, transparency and collaboration are going to be key to delivering for the residents and the students of Howard County. On behalf of the students, staff, and families of Howard County, and as the financial officer of the school system, I employ the county council to restore as much of the board's requested budget as possible. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Hall. Next up is board member Chen. Does he go online? Okay and after board member Chen is um do we ever find Tessa on? Okay. Hello? Mr. Chen, hello. Start when you're ready. Hello? Can you hear me? Mr. Chen, hello. Start when you're ready. Okay. Hello. Hello. Can you hear us? Hello. Hi, Mr. Chen. Are you able to hear us? Yes, I can hear you. Okay, thank you. Let me hear you as well. Feel free to begin when you're ready. Okay, great. So, County Council Chair Wash, Vice Chair Jones, and the members of the Howard County Council. My name is Lin Van Chen, I rest in love with Laurel and the Vice Chair of the Board of Education for HCCPSS. I'm here today to speak on FY 2026 County budget related to the education as an individual. First, I want to acknowledge, like streamed difficult budget this year, that was not expected at the fact on January 9th, when the superintendent was released his proposed FY26 operating budget. A lot of things have happened at both the federal and the state levels, since then. The significant impact on our local school current and the future budgets. I'm appreciative that the county executive will prioritize the Howard County public school system in his present budget. An allocated total $47 million new revenue to address the SES, including $39.3 million above maintenance of funding. How about funding? As a percentage of funding, the total general fund hits 49.1% after its decline over years. But it is still less than historical value 52%. Last 9, Supreme Entendent and Browns present the latest update of the challenging FY 2026 operating budget. Just to mention, the same services, just to provide the same service next year, we need $21.3 million to cover existing services and the $53.7 million to cover employee compensation and benefits. The gap between the new revenue and the fiscal need is $29.3 million as the superintendent just mentioned. We don't even talk about $25 million other important priorities including additional additional special education and security staffing and other items. I'm coming here today to ask you how to fill the gap. Please help us to fund funding to cover at these $29.3 million. Otherwise, our public education system may head into an accelerated downward spiral with increased class size, losing valuable teachers and more crisis in fast rooms. No enriching programs and the burnout teachers and administrators. Families who have options can put their children in private schools. For all those left, they have to be content with what they've given. This is not our company. If we value our education, maximize each student's potential regardless of their background and invest in the future, we should add a budget, speak our value, especially in a difficult situation. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Jim. One more call for Tessa on. Okay next up Aaron Parker after Aaron will have Adam Leatherman and Vivian Moore lawyer. Hi Hi, good evening, Aaron. You've now been elevated to go read on mute yourself and begin your testimony when you're ready. Good evening. My name is Aaron Parker. Please restore the full HCPSS budget request so that the school system can invest in professional development and the science of reading, increase SLP, reading specialists, literacy coach, and special education positions, add non-teaching positions to alleviate a workload of special educators, avoid increasing class size and reduce non-public placements. These investments are designed to alleviate the incredible workload our special educators are facing and improve reading outcomes. Reading is a great equalizer. If you want to close the opportunity gap for underrepresented groups, invest in reading. 85% of learning disabilities are reading disabilities, which means that a large person of students receiving special education have a reading issue. Early identification of struggling readers and intervention is the key. If the classroom teacher is trained on how to implement instruction aligned to the principles of the science of reading, students may not need special education. Waiting for students to fail creates unmanitable workloads for special educators and reading specialists. When students need or not met in general education, which leads to retention issues. Fix reading and you will increase teacher satisfaction and start to address recruiting and retention problems. When we don't use the right teaching methodologies for reading in general education, hits fall behind and wind up with special education. If we train classroom teachers in the science of reading, we should be able to catch students up in general education and prevent students from needing special education and reduce workload. We also just need bodies. Our special educators, speech language pathologists and reading specialists are overworked. More students need their services and we have the best teachers to provide services because they have left the profession due to unsustainable workloads. We can't reduce workloads without more people, so we must increase staffing and special ed, SLPs, literacy coaches, and reading specialists. That said, we've been unsuccessful in hiring staff, even when we do allocate positions in the budget. Niring case managers and non-intreptional staff for special education in each elementary school to take the administrative burdens off special educators to focus on teaching would work. Since we struggled to hire special educators in a tight market, women not invest in other types of staff that could lighten the special educators load. As we do every year, we oppose any efforts to increase class size because it hurts all children and all teachers. We must build the system's capacity to serve students within the district and reduce reliance on non-public placements which are expensive. Please prioritize teacher professional development in the science of reading, SLP, reading specialists, literacy coaches and special education positions and non-teaching staff positions to alleviate the workload of special educators. Do not increase class size and reduce the system reliance on non-public placements by hiring staff. They will programs within our schools. Please fully fund the Howard County Public School System budget. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Parker. Next up is Adam Letherman. I'm here in front row. I'm here to help you. I'm here to help you. I'm here to help you. I'm here to help you. I'm here to help you. I'm here to help you. I'm here to help you. I'm here to help you. I'm here to help you. I'm here to help you. I'm here to help you. I job. Needless to say, I was going through a lot and I needed a sense of direction. I received an invitation for an information session at HCC and on a whim, I figured I'd attend with my dad. What did we have to lose? Each year, community colleges across the country recognize April as Community College Month, and this year theme is best decision ever. Without a doubt, attending that information session was my best decision ever. As a student at HCC, I had so many opportunities to learn, grow, and discover the greatness in myself and in others. I attended an alternative winter break, volunteering at a children's hospital, spending a, I served as an SGA senator, providing the student perspective on teams and committees, and I studied abroad and learned about world history and cultures, but more importantly, I received an incredible education thanks to dedicated world-class faculty and staff. On top of teaching and providing services, they'd ask about my family, they knew my love of bad puns and pop culture references, and in short to them, I wasn't just another face in the crowd. I was Adam. To this day, my instructors that have become my colleagues still remember our classroom interactions and bring up conversations and assignments from over 10 years ago because they care about their students. I sought out the college as an employer, because I wanted to give back to the next generation and make a difference in the lives of others. Just as we train students for in-demand careers with family sustaining wages, the same must be true for employees at HCC. Your support for the operating budget is critical in ensuring that HCC can recruit and retain the talented top-tier student-focused employees that our students can stitch once and county deserve. During the pandemic, I started having blurry vision in my right eye and I developed uncontrollable tremors in my hands. After seeing my primary care doctor and optometrist, a neuroophthalmologist and an neurologist, I finally was diagnosed with opnectoritis and early sign of my eventual multiple sclerosis diagnosis. Without the healthcare benefits subsidized by HCC, this level of care would be unaffordable, unattainable, and with an unpredictable effect on my future ability to continue to earn a living and support myself. In summary, HCC has changed my life for the better in so many ways. Please help HCC make the same impact in the lives of our students, our employees, and with your support of the proposed FY26 operating budget. Thank you so much for your time. One second, just failed. Perfect. Two seconds. Perfect. Next up is Vivi and more lawyer. Good evening, Council members and everyone here in attendance. My name is Vivian Moore Lawyer and I am the interim chair of the Howard Community College Board of Trustees and a resident of Howard County living in Ellicott City. I am pleased to speak to you tonight not only on behalf of our Board of Trustees but about them and our excitement and having them join us in leading the college in meeting students where they dream. Last night we held our first board meeting to introduce Russell Frisbee, Alicia Altamurano, Michelle Douglas and Stacey Ulrich to our campus community. We are so honored to have esteemed professionals and community leaders to share in the honorable work of growing Howard County's anchor institution for personal and professional development for its residents. Their leadership is already on full showcase, displaying for the attendees their quick study of our history and programs, and asking questions about how support can grow and benefit of our students and employees. It is worth noting the experience of this board. Trustee Douglas is sought after is a sought after thought leader in public policy and legislative lobbying. Trustee Frisbee is a renowned lawyer on regulatory and corporate legal issues. Trustee Alta Morano, also a practicing attorney, is highly regarded for her work on immigration and family law, specifically in pro bono council and representation. Trustee Perkins is an acclaimed leader who devoted decades of esteemed service as an educator and principal in our public school system and faculty at two area universities. Trustee Ulrich is a dynamic leader, serving as Vice President of Communications at BGE, advising and managing swiftly changing issues with one of the nation's largest energy companies. Trustee Solakader, our longest serving trustee, is an invaluable presence on this board, not only for her professional expertise in labor relations, but for expertise as a former board chair. And while I am also a trained attorney, I served as a director of Human Resources Officer at Montgomery College. I shared this information to relate to the council and the community at large that this is a seasoned, competent, forward-thinking board which embraces the challenge of managing $200 million enterprise charged with saving and improving lives. When you invest in our college, you can be sure that we think, speak, and act in concert to ensure that all our employees and students enjoy how in association with this college yields professional generational outcomes through employment, teaching, and learning. You will find in this budget request that we have not sought additional positions or extensive additional funding to offset state appropriations. We have emphasized our raises for employees and modest changes to our tuition structure to effectively grow the college while maintaining high levels of service, provision, and resources for student achievement outcomes. We appreciate your continuing support of our institution and the executive partnership between the board and Dr. Willis. We have proven that text payers confidence deals great return for all citizens and that our commitment as trustees is sound and rooted in commitment to the future of Howard County. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Dr. Rillis. And after hers going to be Amy Shane and Kelly Kling Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. country Home. I am honored to serve as President of your Howard Community College, and we are here to request your support of our operating budget during these difficult times. Earlier this year, in January, the White House Office of Budget and Management sent a memo to non-profits nationwide, inclusive of community colleges, threatening to take funding from the deserving students who are your constituents in this county. Had the administration been successful, we would have had to close our Children's Learning Center, that just reopened following its closure during the pandemic, along with other essential services that students need. This would have been detrimental to our students as one in five students on any college campus are parenting scholars. And if they don't have a safe place for their children to learn and grow, then we stand to lose those students. Just this week, the White House released several executive orders, potentially impacting our regional accreditors, for example, but also making it more difficult for students to qualify for Pail grants, especially if they are part-time students. At HCC, most of our students are part-time. The thought that they could lose, potentially lose funding due to no fault of their own would mean that HCC would have to rely on our donors and operating dollars to keep them engaged in classes. Outside of what is happening in Washington, we are experiencing rising costs and benefits for our employees, totaling over $800,000 along with the rising cost of operating and keeping the lights on at our institution. But regardless of where we stand, Howard Community College is thriving and continuing to do what is necessary to support our amazing faculty and staff by proposing a modest cost of living increase to reward them for their hard work and to also give them the opportunity to support their families. They have worked hard to help us raise enrollment and to work to increase our graduation rates in their doing a fabulous job. We are getting a greater share of students from our wonderful partners at HGPSS and we want to ensure that every student that enters Howard Community College will remain in Howard County to raise their families and become productive citizens. We understand you have difficult choices this year, but we ask you to fully fund the County Executive's budget proposal for the very best community college in the state and nation, the Howard Community College located in Dragon Country. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for staying. Miss Yul. Good evening. Thank you for staying. Good evening Dr. Welles. Thank you. You mentioned a modest cola and I'm wondering what that percentage is. 4% 4% And is that what has been negotiated by your union or are you negotiating with your union at all? We are actively negotiating in good faith with our union. And is that 4% negotiated with the union? We are actively negotiating with our union in good faith. I don't think she can say anymore. OK. All right. Thank you. Anybody else? OK. Thank you. Miss Amy Shane. I could even need you now, but now I'm elevated. Feel free to unmute yourself and begin your testimony when you're ready. Can you hear me now? Yes we can. Thank you. Good evening. I am a parent of two Howard County Public School System students. I am an active member of the PTA and my family arrived here two years ago from New York for a job opportunity in Baltimore. We chose to settle in Howard County for its diversity, location, the community, and most importantly the reputable Howard County Public School System. Coming from New York we were accustomed to high taxes., our former school system did not face issues we've encountered here. In our former town, the law caps kids at 24 per classroom. 24. 24, what a luxury. In the New Jersey town we boarded, they were outraged when the board of ed increased to 25. 25 kids per classroom. We have since learned what a utopia that can be. We arrived in January of 2023. Our children in the middle of their third and fifth grade years, they were welcome to Manorwood's Elementary School where we were stunned to discover that students were switched into trailers and in rooms, not meant to be classrooms. My son spent his fourth grade year cramps in a once resource room where his teachers didn't even have, his teacher had no space for a desk. The students' desks were crammed together without any space for kids to have story time or stretch or have a moment to reprieve from the kids on top of them. As my older child entered Mount Humidal School, we discovered an overcrowded school with a one-way system where kids fall down the stairs as they try to make their way to class. There are trailers which present their own security safety concerns. Numorous new homes have been built in the area seemingly without any consideration for space and class. More than 30 new students are enrolled in our already overcrowded elementary school this year. And the development continues. Overcrowded schools present issues with injuries, fights, security. I wonder how many lawsuits have been filed as a result and how our insurance premiums are doing. We are so grateful to our amazing teachers and staff who cope with these conditions, who are told about paper shortages, who face uncertainty about their future employment, who are given more responsibility and paid less each year. A solids for my kids has been the GT programming where they met their friends, and while mentoring school through their cryptology sign language class and in middle school my daughter met her friends in the GT writing seminar and other classes run by the amazing Miss Meko. We were stunned to find that the middle school does not have an after school bus and so few after school clubs are for middle schoolers. We now have set the bar so low compared to where we came from that we just wish for basic bus service for everyone. Let alone dare dream of paying teachers for after-school opportunities that will keep our kids learning engaged and socializing after school. I have testified at the Board of Ed and here I am with such a low bar asking you to provide the funding needed for our school systems baseline. I know dare ask for more despite the high taxes we pay, despite the involved parents and so much potential with our amazing teachers and students. Don't be so naive to think we'll always have a tax base here if our school system continues to fail. The school system draws families here and it's foolish to continue to allow the system to decline with crumbling buildings, lack of busing, overcrowding, court staffing, failing our special ed students, and failing our community as a whole. Please provide the funding that our schools need. Thank you. Thank you, machine. The next up is Kelly Klein's filter from the Howard Progressive Project. And after her, it's going to be Mr. Ryan Powers followed by Harry Hague. Good evening. Chair Walsh, Vice Chair Jones, Members Rigby Youngman, and my own Miss Young. My name is Kelly Klein-Felter and I'm here tonight as an HCPSS mom, a teacher, and the president of HPP. I know that there are years of dysfunction and distrust swirling around the annual H.C. PSS budgetary process. And I understand that this history colors your evaluation of this year's budget. But I want to urge everyone to remember this. When we talk about school budgets, we talk about children, and there are one chance at a K-12 education. They don't get a redo. The children of this county, they don't have a say in the budget that you fund. The budget gap we're facing again this year, it's not about jobs, it's not about adults, it's not about programs, it's about children who don't get the rich educational opportunities they deserve if you don't restore the budget to the level that the school system asked for. Our children aren't pawns in a political pitch-as-match. They're kids who have no power over their class sizes or the resources in their classrooms or as you brought up Miss Young, the safety of their campuses. That power is yours. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Okay. Again. Excuse me. Good evening, councilmembers. My name is Ryan Powers from Glenwood. Today I'm speaking only for myself and no other group. I am concerned that Howard County has dug itself a hole with a lack of funding for HCPSS that it will never be able to get out of unless the council takes concrete steps today to fix what is broken. Since 2018 the share of county budget that HCPSS receives has gone down 6.4 percent and a lot more if you consider only the recurring funds available to the school system. That's an almost 7 percent reduction to a crucial county service where the needs of constituents have only increased. 16 percent more special education students, around 40 percent more students experiencing poverty. With the deleterious effects of inflation and increased student needs and services, HCPSS is like the red queen with Alice in Wonderland, running furiously just to stay in the same place. We need to switch gears and stop talking about the flat enrollment when we see blueprint mandates for pre-K aren't accounting for. Gateway isn't factored in yet, and you know that CB18 will add 600 to 1,000 new students as fast as builders can build. Nothing is stagnant in the school system. We need to recognize the needs of the present and plan for the future. I am concerned about a runway feedback loop where we don't plan for the needs of the school system and wreck the pride of our county. In this scenario, you approved the drastic cuts to HCPSS that it needed to maintain same level services. When the BOE tries to raise its head above water next year with another reasonable budget, it is again not funded because now the problem is so deep it's even easier to call it surprising, unattainable, unaffordable. I'm quoting the words are kind of executive, used in his memo to the BOE this year just fighting service cuts. Social media posts and letters then convince other residents to essentially let them e-cake with a budget that doesn't get the job done. The cycle of program cuts and increasing class sizes continues for our next year, the third year in a row and soon we can't be pretend HCPSS is a leading school system anymore. We can't ignore the reality at HCPSS has even more needs that aren't being filled in the county executive's budget proposal. Scrutinize the BOE budget, find efficiencies, and hold them accountable for fiscal responsibility. But that should also involve Howard County holding meetings with the community so that you can hear their concerns and inform them of a better way. It should be a conversation posting on Facebook doesn't do it. Finally, you have been presented with data showing that it's reasonable to assume at least 10 million more investment income. The SAAC has also had an historically conservative record underestimating new county revenue. We shouldn't let that money become pay go that doesn't prioritize the educational duties of Howard County. Thank you for your time Thank you Next up Mr. Hagdo After that's gonna be John Butler and Annie long Here we had to is up next to see virtual. Oh, okay. Okay, so next up is John Butler. Okay. Next up is Annie Long. There you go. I push the green button. You're good. You're on. Okay. Clearly this community is facing budget challenges. The fact remains presented, the presented budget will negatively impact children. My school, I teach high school, transferred 17 staff members last year. Enrollment did not drop that much. To add further insult, my school is slated to transfer five more teachers this year. We cannot sustain. We are all told that if funds are restored, class sizes will increase, student course options will be limited, teachers will be teaching courses they have never taught before, and our unparalleled education system, which is already lost luster, will suffer more than it already has. All of these negatively impact our end product, our young people. Negative impacts. Number one, at the lower academic levels, adding just a few more students can wreck havoc. Larger classes are simply not okay. I teach a class of 28 students, 12 of which have paperwork, meaning IEPs and 504 plans. 2. It is a true shame to edit Howard County's high school course options. 3. To be an effective teacher, I need time to plan and prepare. Not spend my wheels learning learning curriculum standards for yet another new course, or searching for materials. I am slated to teach four courses next year, three of which are new to me. I have no idea how I can possibly be an effective teacher. Number four, students continue to face and present increasing challenges. Pandemic impacts are winding their way through the grades. Many students are in crisis or on the cusp. Further, current political climate scares them. Those of you who have taught, but now legislate or administer, I say this respectfully. I don't think you realize just what we're up against or worse you do and will be unable to respond. Teaching has changed. It continues to change immensely. Materials and activities that were great just a few years ago are now obsolete, due in large part to students very well developed skills of AI cut and paste. As a social studies teacher, I can't facilitate a single lesson that's not available at their fingertips. I asked AI, should Howard County increase school funding? AI's critical thinking skills said yes there is a strong argument. You see the attached. Some of you may if you went on the record some of you may have written it. Please fully restore funds. Thank you. Next up is McGuyer Binniak and Kat Carter and Terry Marcus are going to be following. next is Ms. Carter. Good evening, County Council. My name is Kat Carter. I live in District 5. I'm currently the VP of advocacy for the PTA of Howard County, which has 10,000 members. I'm also the PTA representative on the operating budget review committee, OBRC. So I have been reviewing this operating budget all year long. I'm also a member of the education, the Howard County Education Coalition and safety, currently on the safety committee. I am here tonight because I am deeply concerned about the proposed cuts to the Howard County Public Schools system. When budget pressures arise, our schools should not be the first place to face cuts. I am here today to say that I am here today to say that I am here today to say that I am here today to say that I am here today to say that I am here When budget pressures arise, our schools should not be the first place to face cuts. The school system should not be leading the way in service reduction. Education is a core public service and maintaining its excellence must remain a top priority. So when we look at the county has been conservative and is revenue projections with at least 10 million more available than plan that money should go towards essential needs of our schools not just to additional pay go projects. For years, Howard County has been under funded. Howard County schools have been underfunded and you can see this on the back of my testimony. This year the school system needs at least 80s, 0.6 million just to maintain the same level of services. Without this, we are looking at larger class sizes, cuts to programs, and staff layoffs, all of which will directly impact our students. If you look at the chart on the back of my testimony, Our County Public School Systems share the recurring general fund revenue has dropped significantly over the years. I know you care about students, our students in schools. Some of you have children, have served on the PTA, attended graduations and will. But every year you have voted on a budget that decrease the percentage of money schools get from our budget. Libraries, parks, art museums, theaters, community centers and programs are amazing. But not every child will have a parent who can take them to these places. But every child goes to school. One in six Howard County residents are students attending our public schools. These students will fill the impact of your decision if you do not fund our schools and continue this downward trend. That is your legacy on this county council. Asking our schools to do more with less. On behalf of our students, I am asking you to change this trajectory and vote to fund our schools. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Marcus, it's ready to go. Thanks. After her is going to be Tina Dove and Jean Shoe. Good evening, council members. I'm Terry Marcus. I am the current president of the PTA Council of Howard County. And I am testifying tonight on behalf of the thousands of PTA members in the county. As a voice for parents, teachers, and students, as you've heard many others speak here tonight, I'm here to simply ask you to restore as much funding as possible to the school system, to bring it as close as possible to the Board of Education's requested budget. It is very discouraging to have to be here once again with our hands out asking for money, especially when I think we all started off the year feeling kind of hopeful. Because we finally had the school boards submit a budget that more truly reflects what the actual needs of the school system are. want to emphasize that this is still a step in the right direction, even if we know full funding is unlikely in any particular year. After Mr. Barnes' presentation to the school board last night, we know HCPSS needs at a minimum 29.3 million just to cover existing services, such as employee compensation and benefit to meet existing service commitments. Finding this 29.3 million should be job number one. If that's possible, why stop there? Restoring a full 54.3 million would allow the school system to meet their other priorities, as Mr. Barnes describes them. But these other priorities are not luxuries. They are things like security and special education positions, math and reading teachers and specialists, middle school principals and athletic trainers. Any number between 29.2 and 54.3 million would obviously allow some of these priorities to become a reality. It is to every citizen's benefit whether you have a student or not that HCPSS retains its reputation as an excellent school system. PTA representatives, don't get to pick and choose specific spending priorities that benefit one group of students or staff over another. But there is one thing we can advocate for, and that is to provide enough funding that we can avoid class size increases. We just did this last year. You've already heard how it's hugely detrimental to all the students and to staff. Mr. Barnes very reluctantly made mention of class size increases last night. And he made it clear that this is once again a very real possibility. Programming and staffing cuts could also very well be on the chopping block again. The County Executives proposed budget informs us that at the $1.187 billion budget for HCPSS, 801.5 million of that will come from the county with the remainder coming from various other sources. The county is to provide $39.3 million above BOE, MOE, 1.5 million in one time Pego funding and 6.7 million in employee pension costs that were dumped on the county from the state. Dr. Ball's budget mentions that the funding growth to HCPSS accounts for approximately 55% of all new county general fund revenue growth this fiscal year. My question is, why only 55%? Where is the other 45% going? What is the argument for it not going to the school system? That 801.5 million going to HCPSS of the total 2.3 billion county operating budget means that HCPSS is receiving only 34.85% of the total operating budget. That percentage seems low if education is in fact a priority for the county. As your work sessions progressed from the capital budget to the operating budget side of things we would also urge you to uphold the principle to at least do no harm. Do not pass any new legislative action that creates exemptions or undercut spending to the school system. Do not set yourselves up for even tougher decisions in the future by reducing the amount of revenue available to meet the school boards request year after year. We know that all of you value education. We have seen your work in previous years to restore funding to the school system when it's possible. Please continue to demonstrate that commitment to your youngest and most vulnerable constituents and to their families who pay a whole lot to keep this whole thing going. Thank you so much. Hey, Ms. Marcus. Are you hang on for a second? Sure. Just because you're from PTAC. When you guys talk about funding at PTAC, is there a recognition that the Howard counties funding per pupil was the highest in Central Maryland? or even higher than Montgomery County, higher than Baltimore, Carol, Interundle. Yeah, I mean, I think we look at the per pupil numbers and we know that dollar amounts go up. But the revenue is not keeping pace with the cost of things. Oh, we know. We know that. And that's why what I, the comment, it made about, you know, mostly and, and Mr. Barnes, you know, they've been handed kind of an impossible task. Later. And, you know, make no mistake. A lot of this is coming from Annapolis that promised dollars for these mandates that are not showing up last year. I sat here and said next year, next year, we'll have the money for the teacher raises. And it's like, here we are. Well, I can ensure you that we do not support any unfended mandates for education. That is definitely a problem. Yeah. And the answer to where's the other 45% going? Police officers and firefighters get raises too. Our insurance costs and our fuel costs and the cost of running the entire other part of the county, other than the school system. We're trying to do on 45% of that budget. And I'm not trying to advocate one way or the other. I just think it's important for people to understand that You know while this is an education public hearing Every agency in Howard County is is you know cost of going up on everybody so and I just because you're a p-tack I just want to know with the nature of those conversations where that's all so Miss Well, first Ms. Marcus, I want to thank you for your incredible patience for the last year by serving on HB 1450 task force. And for those of you who are not aware, that is a task force that was created by our state delegation and that has been looking at ways specifically to increase funding to the school system. And we have looked at every single aspect of the county to try and find anything. And we have been stymied by the task force from really moving forward. And at this point, we may be actually doing what I'm calling a minority report. And so that we can at least get out our recommendations for places where we believe that there is some extra funding or where we should be making extra commitments to the school district. And again, I just wanted to thank you for hanging in there and for supporting all those ideas. So you've got a really good advocate here in Miss Marcus, who knows what she's doing and knows what she's talking about. I just wanted to point that out and thank you. Thank you so much. And... APPLAUSE Thank you, everybody. No? No for what it's worth folks, I don't know if I would have gone to school if we didn't have banned for the last seven years. And every one of us I think played in the band. My kids were athletes. My daughter loves art and even considered being an art teacher. Like there is no lack of understanding of what kind of train wreck we could possibly be headed for in priorities that we all care about. But unfortunately, Annapolis has is forcing us to prioritize their priorities over our local priorities. And we're just, everybody's doing their best. Next up is Tina Dove. James Hughes going to be after her followed by Catherine Biederman. the Good evening chairwoman Walsh members of the county council. I'm I'm that the vice chair, who is my council member, isn't here to join us, but I greet him in a session. I'm here. This is a hybrid meeting and I am present. Well, it is good to hear your voice, vice chair, Jones. I'm so glad that you're here to hear from your constituent. My name is Tina Dove. I am a proud secondary social studies public school educator who is not currently serving in an instructional capacity. I'm a faithful Howard County taxpayer, a resident of the village of Longreach, and a member of the Jefferson Hill community. I am a product of public education, the first person in my immediate family to graduate from college, and the first to earn an advanced degree in my case, an MED from the George Washington University. I am a former Capitol Hill staffer serving both in the US House of Representatives and the United States Senate, a former federal and state level education lobbyist, and an unapologetic education advocate. I don't say those things to be braggadocious. I say them to make a point. I am my ancestors wildest dreams come true. I am their dreams made manifest in sitting in front of you. And I am also living proof of what is possible when we properly invest in education. This is a hill we should die over. I am an investment that you should be willing to die over. As Baron Clause Moser, a statistician and former director of the Central Statistical Office of the United Kingdom once said, education costs money. But... Aaron Clause, Moser, a statistician and former director of the Central Statistical Office of the United Kingdom once said, education costs money, but then so does ignorance. I'm not naive about the fiscal realities we face here in Howard County and across the state. I comprehend fully the fiduciary rules and responsibilities you must adhere to as you make difficult, budgetary choices. I also understand the competing funding needs that you are called to meet. And I understand the consequences of unfunded mandates, be they from the federal government as it relates to their historic lack of funding as they are supposed to do with IDEA or from the state. But I also understand that choices have consequences. And with all due respect, every one of you made a choice to be an elected official. And therefore, every one of you has a responsibility to me and to my fellow educators. And more importantly, to the babies, we are responsible for teaching. So as much as I struggle with the notion of your struggle to figure out how to make a dollar out of 15 cents and stretch it for a whole entire month, that's the problem you bought into when you sought election. And I expect as are elected officials that you'll meet that challenge. I will close by saying that no other investments yield as greater return as the investment in education. An educated workforce is the foundation of every community and the future of every government. So said Brad Henry, the former governor of Oklahoma. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Stone. Gene's juice up, followed by Katherine Beatermann. Good evening, Council members. My name is Jing Xu, and I'm here today as a concerned resident who cared deeply about the future of the Howard County Public Education System. First, I want to thank each of you for service dedication, especially during this particularly uncertain and challenging budget season. I recognize that you are facing difficult decisions and competing demands that appreciate your service and dedication to our community. HCPS needs 84 million more just to maintain the current level of service. Unfortunately, the county executive proposed budget falls short and leaving almost $30 million gap just to maintain current staffing. Even more concerning than leaves more than $54 million shortfall compared to the board of the occasion submitting operating budget, which include critical priorities like special education supports and an athletic trainer for every high school. This gap is not just a number on spreadsheet. It translates directly to larger class sizes, fewer teachers, and reduces support for students. We must not let that happen. For years, the HCP as a share of recurring general fund dollars has been steadily decline. And this trend undermines the foundation of our school system. In the future of our county, it's time to reserve the course and restore funding to historical level. And meanwhile, based on the most recent data available as of February 28th, the county's investment income for FY25 has already met a budgeted projection. And we still have a month left in the fiscal year. The additional income from now through June 30th, which is the end of FY25, will go to surplus. And I urge you to consider putting these surpluses to good use. Invest the back into our schools and our community. Although my children have already graduated from Harvard County Public Schools, public education was always been a cause I deeply care about. Our strong schools are cornerstone of this country. The other reason families move here, business invests here and the communities thrive here. And this is not just about today's students. It's about preserving the excellence of our school system for generations to come. We all have a role to play in keeping education at top priority in the horror county. Please add now and close the cap, reinforce, restore the funding to our school. Thank you so much for leadership and service. Thank you. Karen Beaterman, after that is Mia Kiorila. Kior. Rowan, yep, you got it. No, Karen Beaterman's next. I was, no, you're okay. I don No, you're okay. Don't worry. Okay, well, I'm glad you came up because it's like you're a minerater. Oh, there it is. Now I'm all lit up. That's awesome. Hi guys, how are you this evening? My name is Mia Sharalla. I am a PE teacher at Wild Lake Middle School. And hopefully tonight I'm speaking on my own behalf, but also on the behalf of all the ESP staff, and just staff in general of how we're counting public schools. I don't have a lot of data points, you know, to point to, I don't have graphs, I'm not very fancy, I teach PE, to middle schoolers, mind you. But I can tell you from my 18 years teaching, and I was born in Howard County. I was born at Howard County General Hospital, my mom, she retired after 40 years teaching in the Elk Ridge community. Both my brothers, your teachers, ones at Gilford Park, the other is out in them right now. The other ones at Pony Branch. And I will tell you, I remember teaching and getting my teaching job and graduating from Towson University and being like, yeah, this is awesome, this is amazing. I'm gonna love it, I'm gonna save the world. And while I still try to feel like that every day, because every day I feel like Iraq star, because I'm up there, you know, with all these middle school kids, it's really, really frustrating. And this year in particular, I think I found the biggest struggle because just at my school, and again, I'm only speaking from my own experiences, but there was nobody in the health PE applicant pool to hire a health teacher. So we've had a long-term sub for that, among many other positions in our building. And the workload, yes, that increases. So many things increase, so many frustrations increase. And as positive a person as I am and as I try to be because I get it, you can't squeeze money from Iraq. That's not going to happen. You know, you can do the best that you can do. But when I look at PG County and I look at Montgomery County and I look at the salary tables and I and I look at hey they have masters degrees too but I've been 18 years in this County gosh I'm still not making six figures what is up with that what is going on with that you know I couldn't afford to buy a house in this County and I just bought one last summer but I had to go to Prince George's County to buy a house and so I'm like a mile and a half to two miles from the DC line. And my house is less than 1,000 square feet, but it's mine. And I love it because it is mine. I just look at all of those subtle nuances. And I get it in the grand scheme of things. I might be a peon. I might be just, you know, just I'm just another cog in that wheel. But it's frustrating. And I think that we can all as educators, we can all agree. It's very, very frustrating and it makes people not want to apply to Howard County Public Schools. And I can't, you know, PE used to be one of those subjects where everybody, you couldn't get a PE job in Howard County in particular because people wouldn't leave. They're not leaving PE. They want to stay in PE. And it's not happening anymore. So I really, really hope that we can restore the budget that was requested. So thank you guys very much. Thank you. Let's see Liz Hammond. Hi, good evening, Liz. You've now been elevated. Feel free to unmute yourself and begin your testimony when you're ready. Good evening, Chair Walsh and Vice Chair Jones. My name is Liz Hammond. I am just left the OBRC meeting, so I'm just trying to regroup really quickly. Okay, let's see. Yes, my name is Liz Hammond. I am a homeowner in Columbia, where I live with my husband and my two elementary age children. So the current budget crisis is gonna require sacrifices in all areas of county spending. I think our most vulnerable residents, our children and the adults that are charged with their care and development every day, you know, our teachers really do need to be of the utmost priority. And I don't say that just suggests that they're not a priority. I am well aware of the reality of the budget situation and how dire it is. And I know that everyone is gonna be asked to do more with less. I did want to point out though, if you are going to be with Hurricane Republic School officials on Monday, please ask them about how the executive orders from the White House are impacting their ability to continue to carry out their strategic plan, their mission and their values because I do think it's a very real possibility that the school system will come to a crossroads eventually where they're either going to have to compromise their values or stand on business. these executive orders keep coming through. Right now we're complying. Are we going to continue to comply and what is the limit? What's the line? I would, I think it would be who us to fortify the system and with as much money as possible. So that if we do need to stand on business so that we don't destroy public education here, that we can try and eek out some sort of acceptable public education program without possibly even state funding, depending on how bold our school system officials wanna be. Obviously, priorities, class sizes, teacher salary, teacher compensation, benefits, social workers, mental health, all that stuff. You guys, I don't envy the position that you're in. I don't want to take up a lot of your time. Just let's dig around in the couch cushions. You know, you know the drill. Good luck. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next up is Jessica Nichols and Jennifer Saga was gonna be after her. Hi, good evening Jessica. You've now been elevated. Feel free to unmute yourself and begin your testimony when you're ready. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes, again. Awesome. Good evening, county council members and staff. My name is Jessica Nichols and I'm a resident and homeowner in Elbridge. The 2024-2025 Howard County Teacher of the Year and a proud parent of an HCPSS student. Tonight, I testify in my personal capacity as a taxpayer of Howard County. I want to start by asking this body, how are the children? Now this is a greeting we get from the Messiah and it serves as a measure of the health of their society. If the answer is the children are well, then they know that their primary obligation to secure the future is being fulfilled, but if the answer is the children are not well, then intervention must be done to ensure their well-being. I stand before you today to tell you that the children of Howard County Public Schools are not well. Every day, they attend systematically underfunded schools, and while we know the schools are underfunded, this current budget continues the downward spiral of funding that is critical to prepare our students to be globally competitive. Now, last night at the HCPSS Board meeting, we were hit with news that without restoring at least $29.3 million, our school system is looking at critical cuts which will result in devastating results to classrooms all over the county. The lack of funding will drive up the number of students in already crowded classrooms and cut other critical services and courses needed to create a well-educated population. This lack of funding also sends a critical message to new teachers looking for a place to invest their time and talent and careers that Howard County may not be the place for them due to the constant revolving door of new teachers driven by our lack of budgetary certainty. This consistent lack of funding provides a critical danger to our children. As I get ready to conclude, I want to share an image from a recent image of incident that happened at a local San Diego Zoo. See, there was an earthquake and when the earth began to shake, the three adult elephants sprang into action. They immediately surrounded their babies, putting them in the middle, prioritizing their safety, both while preparing to confront any danger that was coming to them. So I urge you to learn the lesson from the elephants. Right now, the budgetary Earth is quaking, and while we can get into the unproductive conversation as to whose fault it is and how unfair it is, I'm asking you to look at this threat that's threatening to devour our children. And I'm asking you to do what the elephants did. Circle around our children and fight by rejecting this low budgetary ask, restore at least the minimum funding necessary for our schools to help us to confidently say that children of Howard County are well. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Jennifer Sagala, and then we'll go back and pick up Miss Beaterman, and then Mr. Wilhide will be after her. You want to take a five minute break? I've never called a council break before. I'm okay. I can wait. You sure? Yeah, thank you. Five minute break. Thank you. I think we should provide the item call for a break. I know. No. Two. What? Oh, yeah. I have made it. Yeah. No, but awesome. I just thought you got to use it I'm excited. I need to know. I'm excited. I need to know. I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm going to go to the next room. I Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. My daughter I'll tell her. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I have to. I have to tell her. I have to tell her. What? What? What? What? I'm going to get it for them. They got the means with you and Brydon. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. 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I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. Miss Young. Home stretch. Yes, ma'am. That's you. Okay. I didn't know if you were there or not. Um, what did you say? Did you go by ginger? Did you go by ginger? I did. I did. I thought that. Did you go by ginger? I did. Okay. Oh. Yeah. I get it. I get it. Yeah, I get it. I get it. I was like I thought it said ginger. Well, we will be ready in Unmumento Yeah, usually I'm out of the vending machine. So. Hold on. One second. Before I started, I wanted to take a look at several of the ad members regarding the process. I have a question that I cannot tell you how nicely we were, how helpful we were. It was just a a warm experience. I want to give a shout out to the staff. Well, that is great because without staff, I don't know that we'd even figure out when to be here. So, okay. Are we back, pulling and recording and everything? Okay. Miss Ginger Sagala. Did I do it? Yes. Good evening council members. My name is Ginger Sagala and I am from Ellicott City, Maryland. Simon Sinek once said working hard for something we don't care about is called stress. Working hard for something we love is called passion. But what happens when those who are passionate are push past the point of burnout, not because they lack heart, but because they lack support. I have been a parent of children in the Howard County Public School System for 24 years. As I near the end of this chapter of my life with only one child left in the school system, I stand before you not only as a parent, but as a resident who deeply values the well-being of our entire community. February 2nd may be officially Groundhog Day, but here in Howard County, spring marks another repeating ritual. Students and parents lining up to beg once again for adequate funding for our schools. It's demoralizing. It's predictable. And frankly, it's avoidable. Mr. Barnes noted last night at the Board of Education meeting that no generation has faced these fiscal challenges in quite the same way. But that doesn't absolve us of responsibility. It demands courage and clarity in priorities. I have lived long enough in this county to value all that it offers. Our libraries, our trails, newleball courts, our public safety, our cultural and recreational programs, and they all enrich us. But I want to be clear, nothing is more vital than the strength and sustainability of our public education system. We are at a tipping point. I have seen the erosion caused by budget neglect, ballooning class sizes, shrinking student services, fewer arts and music opportunities, growing crisis and special education support. Our educators are stretched thin. Our students, especially those who need the most, are falling through the cracks. And this year's proposed allocation, it's not enough. Not enough to meet rising costs. Not enough to reduce class size. Not enough to restore what's been lost or build what is now needed. The truth is, every dollar you withhold from our schools will now cost us exponentially more in the future in diminished community outcomes. We must invest in our teachers. We must preserve the programs that ignite curiosity and keep students engaged. Education isn't a luxury item. It's the engine of economic vitality and civic strength. It's time to prioritize making education the only priority. Thank you. Thank you. This is Beatermen. Good evening, county leadership. I am Karen Beatermen. I am the president of the Dunlogin Middle School PTA. I have a seventh grader at Dunlug in and my ninth grader here in the audiences from Centennial. Please close the gap of the funding for the operating budget. The percentage of expenditure has been trending down for several years and the county executive proposal would lead to staff and service cuts in our school system. We cannot raise classroom sizes. Older buildings cannot fit any more children in the classroom unless you take away all the desks and have the children still on the floor. My specific budget requests are the following. I want to express my support for security assistance, especially in middle school that are without an SRO. I also wanted to make a sincere request that you revisit the assistant principal allocation as some middle schools have tripled the student load than others. All of the Columbia middle schools have two assistant principals while none of the Ellicott City middle schools have a second AP. I would also like to advocate for full-time athletic trainers as they are the key to injury prevention, rehab, validation and site emergency care during practice and games. Security needs. If you refer to my handout, there are 238 portables in this county. Average class sizes are about 30. 30 kids walk in and out of portables at every class change, which is 60 students. Six class changes before and after school equates to 114,000 times a day the back door of your schools are being opened. I will repeat that. 114,000 times a day the back doors are being opened because we have 238 portables with a major overcrowding issue. Who is guarding the back door? No one. We need a security assistant to monitor the back door and perimeter of the school. Having an unmonitor back door is a huge shooter risk. We hear leaders discuss how they've locked the front door, added cameras and have secured vestibules. But what does that matter when your back door is wide open? Many shooters are not looking for a front door. They're looking for a side door, back door. Other security needs. We have an 85 year old teacher, Del Muggen. She can't break up a fight. We have pregnant teachers. They can't break up fights. We have teachers with a fully diagnosis. They can't break up fights. We need security help because we usually have to wait for a handful of male teachers to assist. Meanwhile time is ticking and two months ago we had a 200 pound kid fighting a 100 pound kid Brain and brain injury harm, mental humiliation happens quickly. I have taken care of numerous children with brain injury. I'm sure you've heard of Dr. Bing Carson, pediatric neurosurgeon, I was his nurse case manager for a decade at Hopkins. I've seen many quote normal children that no longer can walk, talk and are diverted and and fed through a G-tube due to brain injury. Done log in, use the second AP to restore order and curtail the daily fighting. I will ask you to review the AP allegation in middle school. Again, all Columbia middle schools have two APs. None of the six Ellicons city middle schools have two APs. Extreme AP ratios exist. Athletic trainers, we need full time athletic trainers to keep our kids healthy. Athletic trainers are the key to injury prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation. Most importantly, they provide field, immediate first aid,. I myself have performed CPR on adult downer to baseball field co-honest. There are about three months of training and I have been in the community situations where emergency occur. You think people were respond, but often pass her buys or two anxious, untrained and unconfident to respond. I myself have performed CPR on adult down at a baseball field, Kiwanis. There are about 30 adults and only one person stepped up to help. You need athletic trainers that are confident with their skills and know how to respond to the emergency. Someone that knows if you have someone collapse, not only do you grab, not only do you call 911, but you also grab the AED machine, automatic external defibrillator. Please do not increase classroom sizes, please fund security assistance, athletic trainers, and please revisit the middle school AP allocation. And I do wanna make a plug. I realized the capital budget was fully funded, but that is a very small win. When we have $700 million deferred maintenance without a timeline of how we were going to get out of this crisis. I would ask that you put guidelines in policy around pay go funding. This should not be a county executive pick. Please, please put guidelines around pay go funding. We all need it in the school system. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chairman. You come back, please. I just want to confirm that I'm reading your chart correctly. I see that Mount View is highlighted red and I wasn't sure the reason for that. And then I also just wanted to follow up about Glenwood. Okay, Glenwood, it was lack of information on the profile and I felt kind of odd cold calling the school bit on the profile. On the profile, they only have a principal listed and if that's the case that is really concerning. I was only looking at Ellicott City Schools because I have a lot of issues with with the public health and health and the public health and the public health and the public health and the public health and the public health and the public health and the public health and the public health and the public health and the public health and the public health and the public health and the public health and the public health and the public health and the public health and the public health and the public health and the public health and the public health and the public health and the public health and the public health and the if that's the case, that is really concerning. I was only looking at Ellicott City Schools because I have a lot of issues with Ellicott City Schools, especially with the capital budget, when we have the top three schools of keep getting skipped. So I was specifically looking for the sixth, the comparison of the six Ellicott City Schools. Now view I highlighted in red because I don't have the paper in front of me. They have about 876 students and one principal and one AP. That means each admin is covering over 400 students. And I will tell you, having been in the school volunteering for many, many years, there's a lot of off-site meetings where the principal gets pulled on off-site meeting. The AP gets pulled to an off-site meeting. Then you have one admin. And that's not safe folks, especially when you're back doors wide open so that's why all the middle schools we've had a lot of uptick and vandalism yeah we really need more leadership to restore order in the middle schools for that age group thank you I appreciate I just figured this would be easier than calling. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Fireway. Okay. Just making sure you're, thank you. Thank you Madam Chair, members of the Council letter here to here to hear these people's voices and their concerns about this fiscal budget and how it affects them every day. You know, I read through this budget board, maybe a lot of fancy words, a lot of pictures. But what I look at is substance and you know, I'll use Matt's blueprint. There's four things that I use as my blueprint. The first one in a community that's public safety. Police fire any mess. Number two is education. Number three, water sewer, roads, bridges, those kinds of things we all use. Number four of those feel good things. Parks, libraries, you know, all those things that have reoccurring costs and stuff that everybody wants programming, those things. Those are They're fun, but we have to prioritize right as I said number one number one I think we're failing in Howard County. We can't hire enough police officers. I drove it It's the average response time to my house from the closest fire stations over 15 minutes where I have no hydrants in my neighborhood and no water That's a water supply issue on houses So that's failing in my opinion. Number two, we get to what's really failing and that's a water supply issue on houses. So that's failing in my opinion. Number two, we get to what's really failing. And that's our education system. And you know I've been here many times before you as my number one concern about our education system is our safety. You know, I can't say enough things about the lack of safety. I was at the school today to pick up my son. Doors are unlocked. I can walk in. people walking in around behind me. That's the front door folks. We're not talking about the back door. We're talking about the front door that's supposed to be locked in, have cameras and get buzzed in. People are holding doors for everybody. No one's there to meet you. There's only one SR at a school with, you know, Centennial High School. And you know, we talk about safety at it. People walking around around the campus all day long. We don't kick them out. We ask them to leave. It's a public facility so people think they can just go around it. There's no fence around. We added people walking around the campus all day long. We don't kick them out. We ask them to leave. It's a public facility so people think they can just go around it. There's no fence around it. There's no single point of entry. As Miss Beaterman just talked about the portables and the lack of access and control in and out of the back doors of the school, the side of schools. And you can put every security measure you want into schools. Some recent study or recent showing there was a rest at a school where I came from in Florida. They put in metal detectors, right? Everybody thinks, oh, they're gonna be super safe, right? Kids dismantle to gun, put it in different water bottles because they don't put the water bottles through the metal detector and got the gun into the school. Okay, so there's ways kids are gonna do that, but we don't have to go to that point. We can just go to Howard High School where a kid had one in his backpack. All right, so these things are happening in our community, folks, it's going to happen. As I've said before, we are prime for a problem in this school district here because, apathy, we just take for granted that this won't happen to us. well i don't think he was in texas dot that two weeks ago or you've all the your sandy hooker all those other schools and and we want to get statistics about as i talk about parkland granted that this won't happen to us. Well, I don't think Houston, Texas, thought that two weeks ago, or you've all done your Sandy Hook or all those other schools, and we want to give statistics about as I talk about Parkland as well. But I do wonder in this budget, and I have to apologize to you if I got very upset at the last meeting when we talk about excess funds. And I wonder if this budget, we're all sitting here fighting for $23, $29, $50 million. Well, to be $200 million again at the end of this budget and surplus. I mean, can we use it up front? I mean, that's, again, I use a definition. $23.29, $50 million. Well, there'd be $200 million again at the end of this budget and surplus. I mean, can we use it up front? I mean, that's, again, I use a definition of word surplus and with that less mean I spoke about. So I appreciate it. And I know that you're going to try and fund everybody and take everybody. So I appreciate being able to testify. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Eluoria Carter. Okay. Andre Gal. Hi, good evening. My name is And Andrew Gao and I am a resident of the Ellicor City. Today I come here to testify for the school budget. Although the county, the county executive already increased the budget for the school year by 46 million, but this is still about 29 million shorter for the level that we can maintain the same level of education service for last year. So this will, resulting in the reduction in the education service, specifically, the class sizes will be increasing. And now for the favorable programs that all parents come to this county for will be caught. And perhaps the teachers will also staff a webby card. So this is not acceptable. We know that many of the residents in this county come to here just for the good education. For myself, every day I drive three hours back and forth go to work just to be able to come here to get a good education for my kids. So I know there are many parents who work even harder than me and they all come here to wish they can get a good education. But since recent years, year after year, we see that the school budget is short and the school service provided to our students is being reducing year after year and as a class size is the increasing year year after year. This will make many of the residents and especially those hard working parents disappointed. We know that education is very important for our kids. So that for the future, if they don't get an education, they will not be able to get a good job. And they will not be able to be a productive taxpayer. And if we continue to this way, we will not have enough high earning people coming to this country to pay the tax. So please fully fund our HECPSS budget so that at least we can maintain the same level of education. If we can increase, that will be even better. Thank you very much. John the Ciphert. And after her is going to be Lisa Palmer and Jade Chang. Good evening. My name is John A. Seifert and I live in Columbia, Maryland. I'm a current parent, resident, and teacher in Howard County. To quote John Dewey, education is not preparation for life. Education is life itself. This speaks volumes. Education makes anything possible with education, we're able to find our talents and pursue our dreams. I know schools are expensive, and as much as I love finding a good dealer, Cupan, this is not going to work work for our HCPSS school system. Isn't it worth our future generation to pay full price? What message are we sending our students if we are not fully funding their schools that they're not enough? We need students in school. Data shows that attendance is the key to student success. What makes kids want to go to school? Guess what? It's not the test they take in the papers they write. They come to school for the connections, the belonging, to feel safe and loved. They come to school for the interactive, engaging hands-on programs that GT and the arts offer. They come to school to have authentic learning experiences. We need kids to love school. Kids love to come to school when they have an opportunity to shine. We need to provide these opportunities for our students. Data shows that when students are people enjoy things, they won't to continue when they want to stick with it. And we need our students to stay in school. How do we do this? We need more teachers. We need smaller class sizes. We need various programs to pull out their interest and abilities. We need to help build relationships and bond. A class of 30, 32, I don't have that many friends. I don't know that many friends' interests or their strengths or their weaknesses and how you know check in, how they're doing, how their day was, how are they feeling, are they sick, are they hurt? And I went a little off script here. While I was sitting here listening, I had a situation a few weekends ago. I happened to work at a school that my son goes to. And a parent had called me about a student self-harm statement, fifth grader. And the Center for Disease Control says that, sadly, youth suicide is the second leading cause of death. For students age 10 to 14, that's grades five through nine. the third leading cause of death for students age 10 to 14. That's grades 5 through 9. The third leading cause of death for students 15 to 25. And data shows in order to reduce youth suicide we must have strong connections. Students need a person at school they need someone to love them. Let's be innovators. Let's fully fund HTPSS budget and see where it can take us. It's time to pay the full price for this ticket. Our students are worth it. We need all the programs. We need every dollar. Thank you. Applause Lisa Palmer. Jay Chang and Karin Apple are going to be next up. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Lisa Palmer. I live in district five in West friendship, where I live with my husband and my two middle school age daughters. I guess the benefit of going later in the evening is that what I'm going to say isn't novel and will be a variation on the themes that you've heard this evening. But like many others, I'm saddened that we are here again sort of begging to fully fund HCPSS budget and relitigating the value of programs such as elementary strings, gifted and talented programs, and education programs aimed at advancing a child's exposure to math and engineering and science topics. Many of the cuts that might happen if the budget isn't fully funded specifically impact what and how education is delivered within Howard County at the elementary level. And while there are many individuals who might tell the thinking that some of these programs are nice to have and not need to have, and maybe the kinds of things that parents and guardians can provide to their children. I would encourage you to keep in mind that the most critical period for brain development and skill acquisition is between birth and 12 years of age, so elementary school age students. And it's during this period that the foundations for problem-solving skills and exponential learning that is directly related to emotional and social development are formed. The idea that children are sponges at the stage is really accurate. My family chose to live in Howard County and specifically Western Howard County, not because of its lovely semireural environment, not because of the location relative to my husband and my jobs. We could get those in Frederick County, or Baltimore County, or Anne Rundle County, many places in Maryland. But we chose Howard County specifically because of the public school system. And while my husband and I both kind of grimace, every time we see our paystubs in that line that says county tax, we do find solace in the fact that we can say, but at least we have really good public schools. Could I afford to personally provide my children with extracurricular activities that would fill some of these gaps? Probably. But I can't do anything to help counter the issues that come with excessive class sizes or to make up for the fact that if you're eliminating things like accelerated GT math programs that you now have classrooms with, too many mixed level children that can't accommodate any of their potential. But I'm trying to advance not just my own family's agenda. I'm here because I care about all the children that don't have someone to advocate for them and who need these programs to make sure that their education at the most critical time for growth is protected. I'm here because restoring full funding makes broader fiscal sense. You can finish up. Oh, I can finish up. I was just going to say, you know, many people have said, you know, about the fiscal, but when we talk about, when we eliminate these programs, we're not only eliminating, you know, we're eliminating the ability to make Howard County an appealing place to live, and we are directly impacting our own ability to maintain and expand our tax base. I know this wasn't your intent in saying like we pay the highest per student than many other areas. I don't want this to be a race to the bottom. I want us to maintain that top. Thank you. Thank you. Change, Jane. Can you turn your microphone on, please? Good evening, county council members. My name is Jay Chen, a Howard County resident. I live in the Attico City and I'm a mother of three Howard County public school students. HCPSS has been underfunded for years. It was forced to cut staff and use fund balance in physical year 2025. And there's little left to cut. This year we won't maintain the same level of services with a $30 million gap in budget. We need $80 million more than last year to maintain the current level of services. County executive approved $39 million, leaving a gap of $30 million. Without this additional $30 million, we will be facing the risk of larger classroom size due to staff shortages, lack of athletic trainers, lack of staff for special educational positions, et cetera. Another big issue is the security assistant for portables. We have 238 portables in the county. The back doors of the schools are opened. Made in many thousands of thousands of times per day in total, which is a major security issue. I live in the Centennial High School area. Centennial High School has no security assistant at all except a police officer. His task is to supervise over a thousand of students and in the open border school property. Centennial High School has six portables, which we calculated the chances that the doors are open thousands of times without security personnel every day. I urge our county to provide the $30 million additional funds for schools, and that additional funding may be available by examining investment income more carefully. It is heartbreaking to think about reducing or cutting programs, music, GT, and whatever must be cut to keep the HCPS as going. I am talking about Howard County, a relatively wealthy county with plenty of resources. Are we becoming so poor that we cannot even afford to maintain our schools? What happened to our property tax money? Are the schools asking too much? Are we asking too much? No, the answer is definitely not. It all comes down to the perception of values and priorities. The two problem is that we don't care about education as much as we used to or as much as we should and we keep doing that. The quality of education will keep going downhill. Howard County as a whole will lose its attractiveness to residents and businesses. And the long-term damage or the cost for a reverse is beyond imaginations. As a matter of fact, a current trend of families who have been living here for years moving out of Howard County into other counties, or out of public schools into private schools, show the risk. We have been saying all Howard County schools are good, are very good. We are still saying it, but with some doubts these days. In summary, HCPSS is among the best statewide and nationwide, and it is our pride. We need an adequate operating budget to fund programs and services to help grow student achievement. So please consider funding the additional $30 million. Thank you. Thank you. Corinne Happel. I could even Corinne, you now have feel free to unmute yourself and begin your testimony when you're ready. My name is Dr. Trin. Board certified. Miss Apple, we can't hear you. Can you try again? Can you hear me now? Yes, perfect, thanks. We just had to turn you up in the room, I think. My name is Dr. Crane Happel. As a board certified pediatrician and parent, I'm advocating for funding for the Howard County Public School System. For last night's report from the superintendent, the county is almost $30 million short of funding currently mandated items and existing school staffing and programs. Without additional funding from the county council, our schools will again have significant cuts. Funding the school budget tells our children you are important, you are our future. In Howard County, we have a vision of educational excellence. Families relocate here for that excellence. The county should provide funding requested to to maintain this vision. Each year, we are chipping away at programs and services offered in our schools to school age children and their families. Each loss is not a silo. As we cut one item on the budget, the negative effects are felt in other areas. For example, earlier this month I learned from school leaders that because of cuts to one-to-one staffing supports for certain children with special needs, parraeducators are being pulled from helping children with reading to helping keep children safe. While I applaud efforts to keep children and staff safe, it is clear that what we think of as an isolated cut negatively affects all students. Children who are struggling to read are receiving decreased support because of last year's cut to 1-1 support aids and without increased funding, it is likely that their class sizes will also increase next year. On a similar note, children who are not sufficiently challenged become disengaged and disruptive, particularly in grade 3-5 where there are few accelerated learning opportunities outside of students' contact with GT teachers and GT math classes and in curriculum extension units. Yet elementary GT teachers are again being discussed as an item to reduce. Many accelerated learners in these grade levels are already not being sufficiently challenged and as a result are becoming disengaged and or are disrupting classroom activities. Whether a child is diseng or disruptive, not being appropriately challenged, pulls teachers' attention away from the class as a whole and detracts from learning. This will get worse if cuts happen. My family enjoys playing Jenga a block tower game that requires you to take a block out of the base of the structure and place it on the top until the tower finally tips over. Imagine that block tower is our vision of Howard County. That is our sanctuary of educational excellence. Each year the county cuts another block from the foundation of the tower and hopes not to topple that vision. In addition to cuts to one-to-one support aids, last year the county increased class sizes for all the households. We know increased class sizes are associated with poor student performance. When does it stop? We know that the game ends when the tower tuffles over when Howard County becomes a mediocre school district. When families who can move away because of lackluster school programs or choose to enroll their children in private schools, when children who could have thrived and succeeded don't. The county council is the opportunity to work with the county to find additional resources. I encourage you to consider ideas proposed by educational advocates that describe revenue sources, particularly ones that don't cut funding from other current budget items in the county budget. Cutting funds to education cuts the vision of Howard County as a place of educational excellence. Please find funding for the proposed 2526 operating budget for the Howard County Public School system. Our children are future. Thank you. Ms. Apple, you referenced that school advocates have come up with some ideas on where we can find additional revenue. What are theirs? I believe you've been hearing about those tonight already. I have not done that. We actually have it. Okay, so my understanding is that there are currently funds available at the end of the year and that there's generally surplus revenue each year that can then go to a variety of different things. And because of the way numbers are projected, very conservatively, we assume we're going to get less money at the end of the year than we actually do. And because of those projections, we're not allowed to spend some of that money that we do end up having later in the year. And so an idea that has been pitched, not by myself, but by other advocates that I've heard is, can we just make the estimates of the budget of what we're going to receive as a county a little bit less conservative and say this is what we're going to get next year? We're actually probably going to get a little bit more because that seems like the trend. And if that's the case, can we spend a little bit more of it specifically on education? Okay. I get it. Thank you. Ms. Rea. You're welcome. Stay on, please. Ms. Huffle, I'm adding this just because it's been brought up. We'll sort of do the third person. And so it seems wise to bring this up at this point. One, there are very significant and real consequences to changing that dynamic. They happen in counties all across the country where they say, you know, we, they increase that number that they expect so that they can increase the funding, but then the expected funding doesn't come in. And then those are, it is, I am challenged to describe how hard that position is, but you are essentially for a lowing, firing. I mean, it is, it is Prince George's County a couple years ago was in this position. LA County has been in this position. We were in 2000. Yeah, we were in this position. I thought it was 2015, 2016, something like that. And so I think it may seem you can look at a page and say, oh, okay, here's, we under budgeted, but you need that buffer. And especially with this moment in time, income tax lags. So for people, over 10% of the county is employed by the federal government, even more are federal contractors. Many of them are given their drop until September, but that impact is going to hit us in this fiscal year. That's coming. That's that that we're talking about now. And so I think if there's some reticence, that's that's partially it because we don't want to find ourselves in a position that the county was in in in 2015. And then the other piece that I think is really important for everyone to hear is that the state, the AIB, the accountability, and I forget what the eye is at the board. This is from Blueprint, but they, the directive from state education policy, the county doesn't make education policy. We, our task to come up with the funding and make sure that we have the funding. And I think that there are many long-term things that we can do. And it's much tougher in the short term. But they have said that the school system has to realign to the pillars. And that does mean programmatic changes. So really, we do need to have a discussion as a community about what will change and how will change. It's not if the state has said we have to and we have to. So we have to decide as a community how we're going to change. And it is painful. Change is always painful. But I know you've been a transportation advocate and so those would be some of the places where if we're looking at the largest items and it's really like you have this terrible choice or this terrible choice or this painful choice. But I just wanted to explain sort of what has happened both in our past as a county, but in our surrounding counties what happens when you increase that revenue item so you can increase funding, but then those revenues are not actualized. And then secondly, the state has said we have to realign these programs. And this is why we keep having this conversation. But the AIB is set it over and over in multiple reports. And we do need to make some changes, somewhere. Chair Walsh. Chair Walsh. We'll go ahead, Dr. Happel. If you have any questions. I was just going to say thank you so much for clarifying. I appreciate that I've heard that from a lot of different people. I will say from a revenue perspective, we talk about flattened enrollments in Howard County. And when we say that I do want the general public to understand that if the services at public schools decline, we will continue to lose children to private schools, to homeschool, to having families not really come here with children. And so I think from a, if we're thinking also about how much money comes because of how many children are in Howard County, we may also be facing cuts if we do not maintain the level of service that we've provided historically. I think a number of us agree with Dr. Huffleen. And I agree with your response to Mr. Youngman's question. I thought you did a terrific job of answering it for someone who at first started by saying, I'm not really sure, you pretty much nailed it. And my colleague to the left says that we as a community have to change. I agree with that, but I think the change that so many of you have mentioned tonight is we have to stop grossly underestimating projected revenues every single year, year after year and under year, and the rest of the year, and the rest of the year, and the rest of the year, and the rest of the year, and the rest of the year, and the rest of the year, and the rest of the year, and the rest of the year, and the rest of the year, and the rest of the year, and the rest of the year, year. We know what that number is right now and we can figure out what it is for the next month. And I'm sure there's other ways that we can do it as well. But the the the the under estimating of revenues I think has been the worst thing that we could have possibly done under the last five years of budgeting. And I think that's exactly how we got into this situation. And if we don't change that with our eyes wide open and seeing it, look at any aquifer, look at that bottom line of general fund balance accrued and ask yourself why. What have we given up in these five or six years to achieve that ability to make a lot of money on investment income? It's not a trade off I'm willing to endure a minute longer. Applause. Ms. Young, anything bad? Agreed. I just have to say I agreed. We have seen the constraints that have been purposeful so that that money can go into what we call play money. And then there's a lot of it and then it doesn't go to the schools. And I think Ms. Walsh and I are both very tired of seeing that and it has been consistent. So it's also hard then once that money is designated for us to move it from one place to another but we will I'm sure that we will try again this year as we have in the past. I'll go ahead and chime in too. Yeah, the pay go thing has been huge the last couple years and look, if you talk to our budget folks each of the last two years, they thought that was going to be the year we fell off sort of the COVID gravy train. And they didn't want a budget that we that we would stay on it. If you go back just I think the year before we got here, Pego was four million. So you know I'd love us to hit it right on the nose but you know we don't want to end up upside down. I think you're going to see over the next year or two that COVID number is going to shrink. And it has become a bit of a red herring because of all the impacts of COVID. On the programmatic changes, you know, I'm scared to death. We were talking about it over here during the break. And unfortunately, the folks aren't in this room, that aren't ringing their hands, and aren't tasked with dealing with this is our state legislature. Yeah, the state legislature has told 24 communities that your priorities, your values, what you guys want in your school system are secondary to what we want and insist that you have in your school system. And there is no reality that we can afford everything that Annapolis wants us to have plus all the stuff that we're used to. I mean, I talked about a couple hours ago. I mean, athletic trainers. I'm worried about losing football. I mean, that's how serious I think this is going to get. Yet, none of this conversation is being directed to our legislators in Annapolis, who even this year were asked to slow down the implementation of the blueprint by the governor and they refused. So if they were able to push the pain down to us and fix their budget, then maybe that would have been at least some good, but they didn't fix their own. They just kicked some cans down the road. They've pushed some things down to us. Even if we find $30 million this year, we're not gonna find it again next year. We're not gonna find it again the year after. And it will be this Groundhog Day again. So, I mean, to be real honest, I think that we all know who our state legislators are, and the school system needs some relief from some of these mandates until the state figures out of way to help us pay for it. And I can tell you, we're having a lot easier time paying for it than a lot of other counties. So, is anybody else having to add on that? Thank you, Ms. Sapo. if you're still there for kicking off a great doctor. Thanks for kicking that off for us. Cindy, the fallet. Hi, good evening, Cindy. You've now been elevated. Feel free to unmute yourself and begin your testimony when you're ready. Hello, good afternoon or good evening. I should say are you able to hear me? We can. Awesome. Great. Just had a weird moment with myself on. So good evening, council members. I am a district one resident with a stepson enrolled in how public schools and a daughter starting at Centennial Lane Elementary next year. Where despite the threat of redistricting, I am planning to join and I'm currently engaged with the PTA as the PTA liaison, or one of them, because I believe there's nothing more important than our children and their education. I grew up in Howard County. I thrived in our school system and I remained here for most of my adult life. When I was displaced by the 2016 flood on Main Street, I did move away for a short period of time. When I was offered an opportunity to work down in Washington, found myself pretty displeased with life down that way and moved back up here with my husband and our blended family. We chose to come back to our county because we wanted our children to receive the same excellent education that I did while I was growing up. I trusted that reputation. But in the town we've been here, we found the opposite. We've encountered continue overcrowding of our schools due to unregulated development that started back when I was a teenager and continues today. We face this threat today of budget program cuts and we've just continued to face it for such a long time. The constant school redistricting that divides our communities in a zero sense. We have children who are absolutely stretched to the limit and able to thrive without the teachers and programs they need. Our schools are in desperate need of renovation expansion. They need the money to do that. So, at a program cuts is such, or a children's well being. And where I've been, our teachers are feeling the pressure of cuts, see it more cuts and cuts than other redistricting efforts. And for council, it's exhausting. We as parents, we just want to be engaged with our kids and their education about communities within our school. But I don't have to concentrate this bureaucracy that treats our public servants and children. Like they're the last to name tips on high state poker game, but just hoping we win the showdown with a bad hand. This isn't a game, this is our children's education, it's the bonds about community, and living up to the good name that is Howard County. Funding should not continue to decline, especially in an era right now with staggering increased cost of living, uncertainty with federal education funding, and state education funding, and employment uncertainty for families and poor by the federal government, which is a very large population here in Howard County. We can't continue to claim that our schools are a point of pride. We just can't do that anymore unless we fully fund them. We can't keep shopping in our children on the political ponds. We expect them to thrive, we need a school system that thrives. So please listen to us, the community, and your constituents, and fund the Howard County Public School System budget. If we keep going on this road of playing havesies our children are going to end up paying the price and it's a great unkindness expect that they will fix our mistakes. They and Howard County both deserve better. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next up is Henry Yarmus. Well that's right he was a student. So we have Danielle Dunne who will be followed by Anthony Fullmore and Jessica Lee. Good evening. It's on here. Good evening. My name is Danielle Dunn and I am a library media specialist at Hammond High School. And I'm speaking about our program, the library media specialist, high school library media specialist who are usually on the forefront of every thought of cuts whenever there's a budget cut. So as you consider your funding for Howard County Public School System, I would like to lift up the role of the High School Library Media Specialist. In past years, when there have been budget cuts, our jobs, our roles, are often looked at as something that can be cut. However, we are the heart of the school, and our role is essential for the success of any educational institution. High school library media specials create belonging. As our students face uncertainty, the library media specials are a constant support in their lives. According to my administration, the media center and the student services center are the most requested places the students ask to go. Library media specials create a space that is welcoming and supportive. From the books that we order and then display to showcase all of our students, to the organization of space providing quiet and group work spaces to providing individual or small group educational instructional supports, we create a space of belonging as students gravitate to. High school library media specials also instructionally facilitate lifelong learning. Instructionally library media specialists work collaboratively with our teachers to create instruction on information literacy, critical thinking and digital citizenship. Our students urgently need instruction about how to consume what they see online. Throughout the year we work with classes across content areas on how to responsibly and ethically use and evaluate social media and AI. These are skills that are essential to empower future ready learners. This is an addition to our instruction that supports traditional informational literacy, supporting research projects, and instruction supporting the infusion of educational technology into the curriculum. Let me emphasize that we support and deliver this instruction to all content areas. High school library media specialists support the entire school community where there expertise in collection development. High school library media specialists across the county use their knowledge of the student community and their schools to purchase reading materials that appeal to student interest and support their school's curricular needs. We collaborate with teachers across content areas to purchase and curate materials to support their specific instructional needs. Additionally, high school library media specialists work with students and teachers to develop opportunities for our students to engage with reading that meets their interest in their reading level and by tailoring our collection to our students we are able to help them help more students rein invest in reading for pleasure which in turn develops their reading competency which you've heard before is a problem. An important skill if we truly want to send our students into the world future-ready. We are also partner with and support all teachers and where we are uniquely poised to help implement current best practices around digital tools and information literacy so that teachers can focus on their curricular goals. And so, and we are essential, right? Our role is essential, our support is essential, our expertise is essential, we are essential, your funding is essential because we are usually right our roles essential our support is essential our expertise essential we are essential Your funding is essential because we are usually on the front lines of being cut. Thank you Anthony Fullmore Anthony some Ashmeet local 1819 1899 I'm sorry guys, I'm blind. Whatever you're ready. Okay. Good evening chairwashed, Vice Chair, Jones, and members of the council. My name is Anthony Fomar, I work at day building lead at Bonnie Branch Medal School and I serve as a proud Asmi member of local 1899. For 14 years, I have worked with Howard County Public School System. In each day, I am filled with pride about the work that our members provide for our students and our community. Members of ASME local 1899 are the ones that make it possible for our public schools to run. ASME members keep our public schools healthy and clean for our students. We maintain the grounds, we keep our buildings and facilities running, and we work to ensure our schools have supplies, resources necessary to operate day by day. Simply put, without us, our schools cannot function. I'm here today to represent all of these dedicated public servants, our members love what we do, we love creating healthy and safe learning environments, and making sure our community kids have what they need to learn, grow and thrive. However, we are not thriving. In fact, we are barely hanging on by a thread, and we struggle every day to make ends meet for our families. Last year, our members may sacrifice at the bargaining table to keep ACPSS afloat. We worked together with management to prevent layoffs and keep our central staff at our schools. As part of the agreement, we made a deal that would provide members with significant wages to keep up with the inflation while at the same time easing the financial costs this created for ACPSS. Ultimately, we sacrificed by deferring part of our cost of living adjustments which meant less money in the pockets of our public servants, but ultimately saving jobs. At the conclusion of our negotiation, our members were told we'd be taking care of next year as a result. This can promise that time has come and this promise has not been kept. Negotiations with the school system have not produced an agreement on wages that we believe reflect this promise. It certainly does not reflect the value of our members work. Our members are among the lowest paid workers in the school system. Once again, the county's education budget is being balanced on the backs of those who can at least afford it. The school system provided its last best offer earlier this month and it is simply an offerweek cannot accept. We live in the wealthiest county in Maryland and one of the most expensive places to live in Maryland. We are tied up being told we matter and given offer by our management that fails to respect our word. We are tied up being told we are essential and forced to scrape by wondering day by day how are we going to make ends meet for our families. Enough is enough. We demand compensation that reflects what we have earned for this community and our public schools. I call on this council to stand with us and as we continue to fight for our pay, for our fair pay that we have earned. Stand with us as we demand fair pay from our school systems so we could build a public school system that honors our work and the services we provide for our students and communities. Thank you and have a good night. Okay, last up is Jessica Lee. Not last up, Mr. Yermen, we have another page. I don't think any of us saw that. Well, Jessica, you not get to be last, but let's start when you're ready. Thank you. Good evening, Chair Walsh and Vice Chair Jones and members of the council. My name is Jess Lee and I work as a business integration and support services specialist at the Howard County Library Systems Administrator branch where I coordinate system-wide needs collaborate on executing signatory events and support outreach for our community. I am also a proud member and bargaining team representative of Howard County Library Workers United, AFSni Maryland Council 3. Our library system is a cornerstone of our community, much like our schools. Our library system is an immense asset for our diverse and growing community. Among other things, our library system provides our community with a DIY education center to develop new skills, a on the road to kindergarten mobile unit to support young children and their families, project literacy to support adult and English language learner education and so much more. Our libraries are open and inclusive public gatherings basis, where members of our community can enjoy a multitude of world-class public services and resources. None of these services would be possible without the dedicated work of our staff, members of HCLWU. Howard County is a wonderful place to live, work, raise a family, and be part of a diverse and welcoming community. However, it is also one of the most expensive places to live and with the rise of basic living expenses to many of us who work for the library struggle to get by. But many of us do not make a livable wage for Howard County and are unable to reside within the county that we support and serve. In February 2024, my co-workers and I voted to form our union with AFSCME so that we could negotiate for better pay and working conditions. Month after month, we continue to negotiate in good faith with library leadership to reach an agreement that works for everyone. Ultimately, through the hard work of our members and bargaining team, we were able to reach an agreement with library leadership that we felt respected the work we do each and every day. Our agreement includes historic wins for our workers including wage increases, a sickly bank, a health and safety committee, a fair process for handling workplace disputes and more. On April 24, our members voted unanimously to accept this agreement, which was the culmination of over 10 months of hard work to get where we are now. The next step in this process was simply for the Library Board of Trustees to sign our collective bargaining agreement. And yet, now after 10 months of negotiations, after over a month since we've completed and signed all tentative agreements, the Library Board has claimed that they cannot ratify our collective bargaining agreement because the county executive did not approve the tentative agreement for our wage increases. Is Howard County a place that respects and values our public servants? A place where we honor the labor and dedication of our public servants for the public services they provide. Or do we want to be like the Trump administration? And an administration that attacks union workers by undermining collective bargaining rights and by breaking collective bargaining agreements with federal civil servants. The actions of the Board of Trustees are not in line with the values of our communities in Howard County. I call on the County Council to unequivocally stand with us as we demand the Board of Trustees honor the agreements that we have negotiated. Stand with our public servants so that we can continue to build strong communities and public services here in Howard County. Thank you. David Payton. It's okay. Can you come back please? I would just look for the next name. I apologize. So, um, good evening. Good evening. We're not done yet, right? I just have a couple questions. So I'm just trying to get the timing here. You all have been negotiating this agreement for 10 months. Is that correct? Yes. And you were negotiating with the, who were you negotiating with? The management of the library? Yes. So it was different members of our leadership team. And my understanding is they were selected by the board to represent the board and leadership. Okay, and then management agreed to your contract terms. Yes, to the tentative agreement. To the tentative, and that was, I have to admit, I read the article today in the Baltimore Sun, and I was really confused. I like kept thinking, is there a sentence missing between these two paragraphs? So then April 24th, which was last week, you turned in the negotiated contract. The contract you had, the tentative contract. So we submitted the tentative agreements and the whole contract to the board over a month ago. However, we had our election to ratify the contract with our union members last week. Okay, that's what happened last week. All right. So the tentative agreement was turned in a month ago and then your union ratified it. How many people are in your union? So eligible members, we have just over 200, and we have 70% membership about this time, just about The county executive wouldn't sign a contract. The library is its own entity. I want to try and get to that. We received communication. Not that the county Not that the county executive had to sign the contract, but that they had to approve it and that that our wage increased. I don't, we don't have to, well, I don't even know how much this reason allowed to be talking about. I think she's talking about the funding for the county. Right. The question is that it's the funding that the funding wasn't delivered to meet the contract and then that's what has to be written. Or they want to make sure that the funding that is proposed in the budget doesn't get cut. Like, like, you know, a lot of these, like, like the school system isn't going to, isn't going to sign off on an agreement until they know what their final funding amount is. I mean that's all I can guess is they want to make sure that their funding is going to be there to do it. Did you get any further explanation? Let's ask that question. No, and so my personal interpretation of what I read from legal counsel, board's legal counsel, it, I could not interpret it as something that was, you know, it very well seemed like It wasn't about receiving budget funding. It was specifically the proposal. So. Okay. So you got the impression that it wasn't because they, because the county, specifically the administration of the county was saying there may or may not be enough money. That was not your impression. That was not what you believed was the hold up. Right. As in like the funding that the system gets as a whole. Right. So the system, right, which is where Mr. Yama was going, the library gets a pot of money just like, and that's why he was saying, we don't tell the library what to do. Here's the pot, just like we don't tell the school district what to do. The school district gets a pot. The county council can't tell the school district how to spend that money, and nor could we tell the library how to spend their money and the same with the county administration. You can put pressure on the on the school district or the or the library or the community college, but we can't direct how that spending takes place. Yeah, the clarification is definitely much appreciated. So, and we can ask about it on Monday. Oh, we will. That's why I want to get the facts tonight before before we ask about it on Monday. I want to make sure that I know everything that we need to know. And did they say anything further about negotiations? So after we, the union members voted on ratifying the contract, we did receive notice that they would also be working on signing the contract sooner than later. But that's the most recent update. So the most recent update was was it yesterday or the 28th or the 29th? Today's the 30th right? So yeah today's the 30th. I believe we heard that they would move forward with their end of the process maybe on the 25th or the 28th. So either on Friday or Monday I think we received communication about that. And that's also when you found out that they weren't going to sign the contract because it wasn't approved by the. So the signing of the contract, we got notice of the delay before we even had our election, but we decided to move forward because we bargained in good faith. Mmm. Mm. And do you have any idea what the next moves might be at this point? I'll be frank, I'm not 100% certain, as in terms of like their timeline and what their next steps are. All right. Well, I appreciate that. Yeah. Okay. Miss Leip, but before Monday, which is when we're scheduled to talk about this in more session, if it's at all possible for you to forward to the council, any of that written communication you have in that regard, it would be really helpful for us to hold it on issues and we're happy to do that. We are. Thank you. Can we contact you with the library workers United email that was signed for testimony and then the phone number as well. Thank you Thank you so much. Thank you. If I may add she sends shits and then into council mail at howorknmd.gov All right, okay And reach bias I'm going to leave you an image. You've now been elevated. Feel free to unmute yourself and begin your test. Thank you. Ariesha. Vias. I can even am resha you now have an elevated feel free to unmute yourself and begin your testimony when you're ready. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Okay. Thank you very much Madam Chair and the members of the County Council. My name is Amriesha. I live in Clarksville, Maryland with my wife and two daughters enrolled in the ACPSS. I also teach as an edge in faculty in the business department at Howard County Community College. I serve as a board member of four three not-profits in Howard County, not included OVRC. At the risk of repeating 54 million times, I am here to request that this council helps fully fund our public school system. Madam Chair, this council, B-O-E and H-C-P-S-S, executives, including school principals at many of our schools have repeatedly heard from parents, teachers, support staff and other stakeholders how badly our school system security needs to be beefed up. After years of pleading, finally, Superintendent and the BIOE have added 33 FTE in the form of security assistance in their proposed budget. Although they called it other priority, I'm sure you'll agree with me in in that safety and security is no other priority. In our school system, security assistance proposed by the superintendent are necessity of today's times we live in. Madam Chair, in last three plus years, we all have experienced many safety incidents that have shaken up our students, their families, and teachers alike. We all remember the cond incident at Howard High last year. We all have seen firsthand the protest in our schools, with some examples of ugly terms those protests have taken. I remember contemplating with my wife to not even allow our daughters to attend schools during that time. No matter how big the learning loss was, it can be bigger than their safety. In last decade or so, we have witnessed numerous examples of violence at our schools across the country. Just this month, there have been a school shooting at Wilmer Hutchins High School in Dallas, Texas. As leaders of this great county, it should be the number one priority for you, county executive, Board of Education and ETCPSS. However, with more than 50% reduction in BOE's budget request, it is not inconceivable to think that BOE will look at these priorities to cut first. I plead that this council helps fully fund our schools. Another priority, well it also isn't really a priority, but our financially challenged environment even in our financially challenged environment even necessities feel like luxury. That is the maintenance of required fund balance in accordance to the in accordance with 4070 that my daughter referred to earlier today. I've heard again and again today that Annapolis is sending mandates without supporting them with funding. As leaders of this county, I urge you to use your decades of collective experience to lobby those in Annapolis to provide us with what we deserve. I want to thank you, Madam Chair and the members of the County Council for your time today. Have a great night. Thank you. Like Laney, Becurey. After that's going to be Susan Pennington, Megan Bronner, and Jesse Kaplan will be our closer. I get even Blinay, you now have an elevated feel free to unmute yourself and make any testimony when you're ready. I could even blame him. Are you still with us there? Good evening. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Oh, thank you. Great. Good evening. I'm Miss Madam Chairperson and Members of the County Council. My name is Blaney Vickure and I have two children that go to Centennial and Lane Elementary School here at Howard County. I'm testifying just like everybody else did so far against the budget cuts that will affect our students tremendously. The proposed reduction will negatively impact various school programs, show services, such as GT programs, music, and other services. These programs play a vital role in our children's education, personal development, and and shape services. These programs play as vital role in our children's education, personal development, and in shaping them into successful contributing members of society. As an individual, as a part of the community, as a parent, and as a member of the PTAQ, a delegate, I would like to advocate for the continuation of these programs. These cuts can lead to lots of jobs to our hard working teachers and staff. Reduced funding will negatively impact students and the overall quality of the education system. I strongly urge you to allocate full funding for our education and our system and resist any budget cuts that could undermine the effectiveness of our education system. Thank you. Thank you. you. Thank you. Okay. I just have to say this has been an unusual evening because Sue Pennington was my daughter's favorite teacher in high school. And Ben Schmidt was my daughter's favorite teacher in elementary school. So to have both of them here tonight and testifying is very special and this woman is fabulous. I just have to say. Thanks Deb, don't forget I took her to the Gloppy Coast and she did. Good evening council members and everyone else. My name is Susan Pennington. I am a a native of Howard County, Yanz ago. I have been teaching a wildlife high school for the past 22 years. I teach social studies. I've taught all four grades. I've taught every level we had. I've taught I've had a five of fours, IEPs, I got ELLs all over the place. So I have a really good impression of what's going to happen in different classes. So last year the budget cuts were devastating to our school. My school surplus 15 teachers and we did not lose any students pretty much. I'm not a fact I think we gained a few. My department lost 2.5 teachers which was the equivalent of 12 class sections. This situation was created by two measures, the increase of class size, but also the minimum number you were allowed to have to run a class in your building. Sometimes we have electives that run, like we have 15 people, but we're not allowed to run them because the minimum was 20. Okay, my department alone lost three AP sections and eight elective sections. We face more cuts to our program if the minimum class size is not reduced or the class size maximum grows. If you do not fully fund the requested budget, we'll be faced with these draconian measures once again. This is a detriment to faculty members and the school as a whole, but it's a greater disservice to our students. The lack of class sections means that students are not given the opportunity to pursue or discover their passion. It also means that we have zero chance to build our elective classes, which are the non-required classes the students choose to take because they are curious and interested not because the state requires them to take those classes. These actions are crushing students' curiosity. In addition, at a time in our nation's history, when it's essential that we educate our students to seek answers and make good choices, we are failing to provide the the arena in which students would learn and test those skills. We've already been advised that our ELL parents will be reduced at a time when our English language learner population is increasing. If the budget is not fully funded, we will lose more valuable support positions. These positions are vital to our students and teachers, particularly in light of the increased class sizes. Teachers are challenged with meeting their students' needs, whether or not they have a 504 or an IEP due to the class sizes. Many classes that need support do not have any support because there's no one there to provide it. Howard County has long been a magnet for people both both domestically and internationally, because of our school system. If we continue down this path and remove those things that enable our students to discover new horizons, what will we be left with? We will be the nameless, faceless people found in the 1984 Mac computer commercial, devoid of any individuality or spark. That's not where I want to live. So please fully fund our budget So we can continue educating people. Thank you. Can you hang on for one second? Yes. Does anybody else have a question? Yeah, I have a question. Dr. Jones fire away Dr. Jones good. Yes. Can you hear me? Yep. Okay. Great. I missed a word. I believe. I thought I heard you say class sections. Were you talking about, am I correct in saying that? Yes. You say sections? Yeah. What I mean is, oh, sorry. Yes. Go ahead. So when you have a teacher, teachers teaches five sections a day. So when you lose a teacher, you lose five sections of classes that you can offer children. Because we have to provide for the three core classes that are required for them to graduate, that means that we have to cut electives and AP classes. And that lowers the amount of choices that children have. So next year, we're not running African American history because we don't have enough people to support the numbers because of the minimum class sizes. I taught AP US history for years. I created the digital AP US history class, but we did not get that class at Wild Lake last year, the class that I created, because we didn't have enough people to support the session, even the section, even though with the digital students, I would have had the numbers, but then we wouldn't have had the numbers of teachers in the building to teach the core classes that were required. So it's a problem. So yeah, thank you for that. And let me just follow up really fast. I'm sorry, Mr. Youngman. So what happens if, so for instance, you said you won't be offering, is it AP African American history, or just African American history? AP African American history. AP. So what happens to the students that want to take it? They have to take something else. So they can't opt to take it at, I don't know how a community college or tap into a Zoom class at another school at the same time. There are only certain classes that are available digitally online in Howard County. They can't take AP African American history at HCC. They would have to take an African American history class, which they could do. But we have this class in this program. We should be running it in the schools. So. And then you're saying last year at Wild Lake, you it was able to be offered, but this year it's not, this coming school year? Yes, we, because only 10 kids signed up to take it or 10 or 11 children so therefore we're not offering it because that minimum minimum and what is just for curiosity what is the minimum number that you would need 20. 20. That was set last year. It was lower than that the year before I'm not sure exactly exactly what it was the year before. But we've always been able to run those smaller classes because we at wildlife high school, we've always been, you know, we're going to offer kids AP classes. We're trying to, you know, have rides up scheduling, get as many kids in AP and GT classes as possible. So we've traditionally run maybe smaller sections of classes just so we have those kids can take. We haven't been able to offer that. Now that minimum of 20 for an AP class is that for every AP class or just for African-American history? It's for every single class in the school system in high school. You cannot offer class if less than 20 students enroll in that class. So if someone wants to take AP Physics or AP Calculus or AP Spanish or AP statistics, you have to have a minimum of 20 students that sign up for it. Yes, but that's not just AP classes. It's, you know, environmental science or political science, guitar, yes. Oh, any class, any class. Okay, okay, thank you for the clarification. Okay. Um, would you mind would you mind email? I'm not there. So I don't know if you have a hand out of personal copy. Would you mind emailing that to all of us at council mail? Please emailing what that your testimony? Oh, yeah, I have it, but I'll be more than happy to email it to you. Yes, please. Thank you so much. I'm sorry for all the questions. I just know it's okay. I appreciate you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your questions because we at the schools are really, you know, we want to help kids so much and we want to give them what we did know that they want to take, but we just can't do it. We understand the budget constraints, but it's a real issue. So if you could please help us. Thank you. Thank you. I can't do that. Can I ask you a question? Can I ask you a question? We just can't do it. We understand the budget constraints, but it's a real issue. So if you could please help us. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. Can I ask you a question? Can I ask you a question? Yes, sir. What's? It could be a loaded question. So if you don't want to answer, it's fine. But what's the perception? Like last year, you lost how many teachers? in my department 2.5 at my school 15. Did the enrollment in the school go down? Nope, went up. Okay. Reception like last year you lost how many teachers in my department 2.5 at my school 15 did the enrollment in the school go down? Nope, when okay? So like 25 I think okay, so let's call it flat. So you're losing that staff. I mean last year the Funding the school system went up 48 million dollars six percent no additional students. What's the sense on the ground of where that money's going? Is it these blueprint priorities squeezing other stuff out? Or is it just... We have no idea. We think it's going over to central office somewhere. I just, I've, yeah. Because it is really hard for us to wrap our heads around when, since the beginning of COVID, funding a school system is up 57%. Yes. None of our budgets are right. And it's like, it's hard to figure out where it's going and my sense is that some of the Kerwin stuff squeezing stuff out but That's it's a lot of money answering that specific question is above my pay grade Yeah, but like for instance they got rid of the department chair planning period last year So that was another section that you have been even with all of that We still had to increase our class sizes and we still lost sections. So I don't know where the money went. Okay. Well, that was probably a hard question to ask you, but I appreciate it. There's just a little perspective. Thank you. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you. Anybody else have any question? Okay enjoy your evening. Megan Bronwner. Thank you for hanging in there all night and still smiling. Turn your microphone on. Good evening. Thank you for your public service. I know that you I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm Yes. Oh, yeah. Sorry. And we've got such a fantastic school system. And we still believe it today, though we are on a brink. But I remember every one of my teachers from K-12, and not just home room, but my special teachers, my art, music, the GT program, orchestra, athletics. There was so much that contributed to who I am now. And that's why my husband and I fought very hard to get back to Howard County. And we were allated to do so. We got to move back here. And now I have a first grader at Bellow's Spring, which is another amazing school. And so I'm here in a role as a previous student and a mother, a representative for PTAC, for bellows, and part of the PTA. And I'd like to think that I represent while not speaking for them, but all the parents that of course would be storming these halls, but not everyone has the privilege of being out at 9.30 to take part. But I know that everyone does care deeply. And my daughter tonight, I also invited her to come and she said, will there be snacks? I told her no, so she declined. Oh, there's plenty of snacks. I'm starting to see him. But what she told me was be resilient mommy. And she said that and I was like, where, where kid? Where'd you learn that one? She's like Ms. Lemon taught us and that's her teacher. And that's the kind of education she's getting. Incredible, incredible learning opportunities. And I don't want to see that, I don't want to see that loss and no one does. And when I'm looking at the numbers, I don't have any specific numbers to throw out, but I second all those that have come. But what's particularly important to me is that percentage of the overall revenue because that's a declaration of our values regardless of dollar amount that percentage stands. And so because I'm a student of Howard County and I've got a math education, I know that just because we dipped last year and we're regating this year doesn't mean that we're on the right track. I really want to advocate for that percentage of gross revenues so that we can stand by our values, so that Mira can continue to be resilient so that we all can, because we need to be. And again, I recognize the difficulty of this fight and appreciate your service in that regard. So I request the $29.3 million back, please. If you can give us any extra, that'd be delightful, but we'll start there, OK? And more public snacks and I'll bring the kids next time. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. They're all healthy snacks tonight, that's nice. Yeah, nothing good. And I think finally, I didn't move in just before. Jesse Kaplan. You got the clothes. I don't know how you end these things. I can't find my script. Thank you all. We're adjourned.