MCCPTA Testimony
The Superintendent’s Recommended FY 2007 Capital Budget and FY
2007-2012 Capital Improvements Program
November 9, 2005
Good evening,
President O’Neill, Members of the Board and Dr. Weast.
I am Cindy Kerr, President of MCCPTA here to deliver my last CIP testimony
after 15 years in PTA’s; as an involved parent, a PTA President, a Cluster
Coordinator, and two years as MCCPTA President. During those years, I, along
with many other PTA leaders, have asked for you to address the critical capital
needs of our schools. We’ve lobbied for more money to build schools, modernize
our outdated ones, reduce the number of portables, ensure that all of our
buildings have healthy air quality, are free from lead and mold and that they have
clean functioning bathrooms, along with the expectation that all have fire
safety, safe access, and are secure. We want it all – for each school to be
safe, secure, and modern. The Superintendent’s Recommended
FY 07-12 Budget shows that you are listening to our concerns and we thank you.
MCCPTA supports the six-year budget of $1, 172 billion and we ask you to “Keep
It Up and Maintain Our School CIP”
We’ve been before you
many times to ask for more dollars to be allotted for health issues. You heard
just this week from a school with a serious mold problem, and from the
Superintendent that are many schools in need of a “full-fix” from recurring
mold. We must find the money to alleviate mold in every school to make good on
the priority the Board has assigned to health and safety projects.
Additionally, we must provide timely lead remediation, and get moving on the
restroom renovations. Along with the increased allocations for lead abatement,
we need to see a plan and a schedule for our affected schools.
We have pleaded for
funding to keep up the projects that provide for safe access, fire safety and
for security; often as a result of sad story or preventable situations. We’re
pleased to see funding that keeps up with these issues. We need to continue to educate
our parents and community on a number of safety issues, including safe access
around schools by cars and buses, and to ensure pedestrian safety.
We’ve continually
asked for more dollars to be spent on capital maintenance, such as PLAR
projects, HVAC, and other systematic life cycle replacements. Too many schools
have aging systems that impact the academic environment in their
facilities—faulty heating and air conditioning systems, leaky roofs, or warped
floors. We appreciate the increase in maintenance dollars in this budget to
keep up with increasing needs as our facilities age. MCCPTA asked our delegates
again this year to rank their most pressing facilities concerns; a number of
capital maintenance projects were very high in the top four advocacy concerns.
Additionally, summer cluster comments on CIP issues contained vast lists of
capital maintenance needs which you will hear about during testimony. We’ll be
back to ask for more maintenance dollars in the operating budget for supplies
and workers. We must have the ways and means to maintain our schools.
We’ve strongly lobbied
for long-range planning and now see the planning for a central area high
school, preparation for solutions to overcrowding in several other areas of the
county, and for revising educational specifications that reflect future program
needs. We support the planning for additional special programs, such as a
second math/science high school magnet but urge that school leadership and
parents have ample opportunity to comment on special program development or
placement of these types of programs in or out of a school. We ask that parents
always be included in important decisions such as site selection, program
specifications, building design and boundary issues.
We must continue to
work together to plan to keep up with the growth in some areas of our county
while balancing program needs and changing demographics throughout the county.
Overall flat enrollment is true for the system but enrollment at many schools
reflects sustained growth. We must maintain acceptable school size with
permanent seats for every child. For many years, we’ve begged for more seats to
relieve overcrowding and see more schools being constructed including seven new
or reopened schools and 14 additions. This new CIP has even more addition
projects that will alleviate the need for a number of portables. We must reduce
the number of relocatables and would like to see a
clear rubric for the prioritization of additions.
We need to keep up
with the need for solutions to core facility deficits while schools await
modernization or as program needs change. Thank you for creating a new line
item for Building Modifications and Program Improvements; we’re sure we can
help spend the money. We also need to maintain the commitment to housing
state-mandated full-day kindergarten and early childhood initiatives without
additional state support.
We’ve asked for
modernizations to be completed sooner, and for your commitment to maintaining
the schedule. You will hear from cluster coordinators who will encourage you to
accelerate this extended schedule as too many children attend schools that are
not safe, secure, nor modern while waiting their turn to be updated, expanded,
and with all systems fully functional. Additionally, we ask that the remaining
37 schools be assessed for FACT scores and added to the list.
It is critical that in
order to maintain the level funding for approved FY 05-2010 CIP projects, a 20%
increase in this budget is factored in to keep up with increased costs in
construction materials and labor. Any reduction in funding will mean delays of
projects. We know you understand this critical aspect of the budget process.
We urge you to
maintain the current schedule to build a gym in every elementary
school that does not currently have one.
We thank you for
listening in the past and for finding solutions and funding and ask again that
you listen tonight as our cluster coordinators illustrate our theme, Keep It
Up- Maintain the CIP with the stories of their schools’ needs.
We’d also urge you to
follow your process and listen to the cluster coordinators and individual PTA’s
as they testify about the recommended boundary studies and Supplement A.
Public testimony is a
critical part of the CIP process, both for the opportunity for us to speak to
you about our cluster issues but also for the rest of the county to hear about
the needs and successes. We appreciate the opportunity to participate in FAA-RA
workgroup, and promise to thoughtfully and thoroughly review the policy and
regulations so that together they continue the best of the past policy: clear
precise language, predictable processes, and community involvement while
incorporating the needed updates.
We thank you for
listening to us, and are confident that you will support the Superintendent’s
Recommended Budget so that we maintain the aggressive approach to building,
fixing, and making sure that all schools are safe, secure and modern for every
child in Montgomery County Public Schools. That’s the easy part; the hard part
will be getting it fully funded this year.
We know that the
County Council will have many demands on somewhat limited dollars in this
pre-election year. We’re counting on your support and communication with the
Council to get all that we need. You can count on us to support your efforts
for funding with our continued advocacy for facilities that are safe, secure, modern and have enough space for every child to be
successful in today’s educational programs.
We will continue to
support your efforts to obtain State funding, as we know that a critical piece
to this budget is state aid. The FY07 state Capital Improvements
Program request for MCPS is $117.9
million. It’s a huge request and we will work along with you to ensure that
legislators have the means to approve adequate state funding for school
construction.
We thank you for your
early support of a $400 million state funding level for FY 07 to provide the
state’s share of school construction funding as identified in the 2004 Public
Schools Facilities Act. Last year, we supported legislation to increase public
school construction to $250 million and wrote countless letters to the
Governor, and our legislators. Like you, we made a number of trips to
Thank you for the
opportunity to testify on behalf of our children and the schools that they
attend and the parents who work with us to ensure that these facilities are
safe, secure, and modern. We are confident that your goal is the same and will
work with us to Keep It Up- and Maintain the CIP.
Governor Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr.
Office of the Governor
State House
Dear Governor Ehrlich,
As
citizens of
We
understand the constraints of balancing the state budget and the many demands
for limited dollars. However, we also believe that throughout the state, students
should attend school in safe, secure, and modern facilities. We know that
school facilities are integral to program delivery. Unfortunately, many schools
are aging rapidly without adequate resources to repair and modernize them.
Throughout the state, school enrollment is increasing and diversifying, and we
need to plan quickly to provide capacity to accommodate this growth. In
In
We
believe it is imperative that you provide adequate funding for school
construction for all children in