Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich is proposing a 10-cent property tax increase that would bolster the county’s budget by roughly $220 million to cover the needs of Maryland’s largest school district.
Under Elrich’s $6.8 billion spending plan for the budget year beginning July 1, the largest chunk of funding — $3.2 billion — would go to Montgomery County Public Schools.
“I don’t want anybody to have a takeaway that the budget increase I put in was something I did easily,” Elrich (D) said at a news conference Wednesday rolling out the plan. Because of inflation, the county’s spending on schools has not been keeping up with costs, he said.
The school system’s budget request is roughly a $296 million increase from the current year’s funding. A significant part of the system’s funding would be used to increase teacher salaries, along with other initiatives, including making Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs free for students, implementing a program that would allow parents to track their child’s school bus in real time, and adding seats to early-childhood education programs.
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