Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh declared a “major new commitment” to the city’s financially strapped public school system, outlining a $22.4 million surge in aid to schools in her 2018 budget. That would take local education spending to $287.8 million, a massive jump from the previous year’s $265.4 million.
The rise in city education dollars is share of an agreement between city and state lawmakers to aid Baltimore City Public Schools address a $130 million budget shortfall that could quick layoffs of 1,000 employees, containing teachers, this year. The deal would offer an additional $60 million to Baltimore’s schools for every of the next three years.
Gov. Larry Hogan believed his end of the deal when he publicized a incremental budget that would deliver an additional $23.7 million in state funding to Baltimore schools in altercation for new fiscal accountability.
Although the increase in local and state help doesn’t cover the anticipated budget gap, Baltimore Schools CEO Sonja Santelises thanked Hogan for agreeing to increase aid. “The additional funding included in the governor’s second supplemental budget is a major component of the state and city’s plan to contribute $60 million toward closing the district’s anticipated budget gap for 2017–18,” she told.
In broadcasting her budget, Pugh whispered the $2.8 billion spending plan invest more money in education than law enforcement and transfers $5.5 million in funds from the Police Department to Baltimore City Public Schools. Advocates and local lawmakers have long whined that the city devotes more on cops than kids.
Calling the budget a “historic moment,” Baltimore Budget Director Andrew Kleine noted that Pugh kept a combined $512.7 million for youth recreation, schools, education and arts grants and other programs, assigning more for education than for law enforcement.
The Police Department’s budget also augmented, however. Pugh allotted $497 million, containing $10 million to implement improvements Baltimore agreed the outcome.
Baltimore City Council President Bernard C. “Jack”Young added last week he strategies to go even further than the mayor, averting an additional $10 million from the police budget to education. The council eventually must decide whether to favor Pugh’s budget.
Lester Davis Stated Young is “looking at cutting fat, not muscle” from the police budget, adding that per capita, Baltimore preserves one of America’s largest police sections. Davis illustrated that the cut mark police overtime and pointed to misuse by officers that has led to a federal indictment and an audit by the mayor.
Not everybody is on board with dropping the police budgets in the service of education spending, however. President of the Cheswolde Neighborhood Association, Nathan Willner, expressed The Baltimore Sun crime in the city is at “crisis levels.”
“The safety of our children has to come first,” Willner added.
