Are Carroll County residents willing to spend anywhere from a few hundred to maybe a thousand or more dollars a year more in property taxes to fix the school system? It’s a question that needs to be asked because estimates from the Carroll County Board of Education suggest that’s what it could take to fund all their current needs, barring any significant changes.
As we’ve well-documented, Carroll County schools are in a pickle. Enrollment is dropping dramatically, buildings need renovation, teachers haven’t had a significant raise in years, and there needs to be improvement made to the school feeder system of moving students from elementary to middle and then high schools. To fix it all, county school board members have estimated that it could require a 30 percent increase in property taxes over the next five years. And that, to say the least, seems an unlikely step for the county commissioners to take. The school system, to put in bluntly, is in a financially unsustainable situation. But we’re not sure everyone believes it.
A few weeks ago, the school system’s Boundary Adjustment Committee, composed entirely of school officials, recommended two plans to the board, one which would close Charles Carroll Elementary and the other of which would close Charles Carroll as well as Mount Airy and Sandymount elementaries, New Windsor Middle and North Carroll High. Neither option is sitting well with parents and local community leaders, including those from North Carroll who have planned a protest before the Sept. 28 school board work session. For that matter, the school board isn’t in love with the ideas either. It seems the only thing that the community and school officials agree upon is that they wish this problem would go away.
But these financial problems aren’t going anywhere and it would be foolhardy to expect that anyone would support a tax hike. Even calls last week in Annapolis by education advocates to use parts of a state surplus for schools seems unlikely and, even if some of that money would make its way to Carroll, it wouldn’t be more than a short-term fix. Carroll public schools need a long-term, big-picture solution that comes not just from school officials but from parents and other community leaders. It will take some leadership and some risk taking on the school board’s part and some compromise from residents to get there. That won’t come the way the current dynamic is set up.
The biggest concern we see, though, is not the money, as tight as it is. It’s more about a committee charged with finding the answer that doesn’t include parents and other community leaders. Changes of this magnitude need to start at the grass roots level. Without that inclusion, it’s going to be tough to get buy-in from anyone. We’d go as far as suggest that the school board form a panel with a clear goal: to offer suggestions that not only address school boundaries and possible school closings, but also financial matters. Other Maryland counties have used this approach.
The final outcome likely won’t make anyone completely happy. But a more-inclusive process will ensure that everyone has an equal say at the table and add more trust to the process.
