Though Howard County officials approved a final budget plan last week providing more funding for public schools in fiscal 2026, the Board of Education is still scrambling to close a $20.4 million gap to maintain current services and protect the system’s financial stability.

The school board discussed possible measures to close the gap Tuesday during its first budget work session since the County Council passed an operating budget of $2.35 billion for next fiscal year, which begins July 1.

Superintendent Bill Barnes presented two scenarios that included possible class size increases and cuts to staff and programs. He said those options were a “starting place” for further conversation.

“We did our best to incorporate a lot of feedback from seven different board members in all of the different scenarios,” said Brian Hull, chief financial Officer for the Howard County Public School System. “And certainly, you know, (we) are willing to iterate off of these and provide whatever we can.”

The board must reach final decisions about the budget by its June 4 work session, Barnes said. A budget adoption vote is set for June 12.

After Howard County Executive Calvin Ball proposed his budget for the upcoming fiscal year, the school system said it faced a $29.2 million gap if it is to provide essential services. To fund all additional priorities included in the board’s $1.257 billion budget request, that gap would’ve increased to more than $54 million, Barnes said while testifying in front of the council.

Ball proposed emergency legislation to allocate an additional $14.5 million in one-time funding from the county’s surplus to the school system.

The council approved the emergency funding when it approved a fiscal 2026 budget last week.

While the emergency legislation helped address the gap, “it has not been eliminated,” Barnes said.

The school system has had to add about $725,000 to the budget for pension cost increases or changes, national board certification cost adjustment and planning, and support for the career ladder framework included in the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, Barnes said.

He recommended additional measures to “safeguard the school system’s financial health,” which would add $5.1 million to the system’s funding needs.

That would bring the funding gap to $20.4 million to maintain existing commitments.

In a letter, Ball suggested the Board of Education adjust its investment income projections, use a portion of the balance in the HCPSS general fund, and tap into the school system’s health fund to help balance the budget, measures which were also discussed during a County Council work session.

Barnes recommended increasing the investment income estimate to $4.5 million, using $2 million from the school system’s fund balance, and, “with reservation,” pulling $3 million from the health fund balance.

“Overall, when we consider these three approaches, to completely drain our unassigned health fund balances and to make overly aggressive estimates for investment income is not a responsible approach to budgeting and will put our school system at significant risk in years to come,” Barnes said.

“But, as I mentioned, staff do believe that we can reasonably and responsibly leverage these three areas to reduce our budget gap by a total of $7.5 million.”

With those measures and $1 million from the Learning Together program special revenue, the board must work to close an approximate remaining gap of $9 million, Barnes said.

He suggested removing all additional priorities “beyond what is necessary.” Those priorities include items Barnes or the board added to the initial budget request, such as full-time athletic trainers, additional special education staff, security assistants and a host of other items.

Items up for consideration in the two scenarios presented by Barnes, which were made with input from school staff and other leaders, include eliminating middle school paraeducators and elementary school media paraeducators, cutting non-school-based personnel, reducing leadership interns and high school teacher secretaries, and converting one of the high school media specialists to a paraeducator.

Other items for consideration are cutting third-grade strings, reducing gifted and talented services in elementary schools and reducing dual enrollment offerings. Increasing class sizes by one could be possible, but it would exclude pre-K, Title I schools and middle and high schools where more than 47% of students receive free and reduced-price meals.

The first scenario increases secondary class sizes by one and makes $7.5 million in cuts, along with $1.4 million in non-school based cuts, affecting 94.8 school-based positions.

The second does not increase class sizes, but makes more cuts to programs and services, and would affect 107 school positions.

However, scenario two would allow for an additional priority, like athletic trainers, to be funded.

These budget options are “painful,” Barnes said, and he had hoped they could be avoided when he first proposed the spending plan for the fiscal year beginning July 1.

“My heart hurts and goes out to staff who are questioning the security of their positions and employment, and I ensure all staff members who are impacted by eventual decisions that we will make together, that our team will do everything that it can to support you in a transition and we will work as hard as we can to retain you as part of our team,” Barnes said.

Board of Education members raised concerns and asked questions, some expressing frustrations with certain areas of the budgeting process. Much of the conversation focused on dual enrollment and transportation, with the idea of charging families for transportation services to offset some of the cost to the school system.

Board members also discussed debt collections, impacts of cuts on staff and other program adjustments.

Board Chair Jolene Mosley said the conversations felt “a little bit off focus.” Teaching students to do math and read, and addressing the five other focus areas of the school system, all got “mixed together,” Mosley said.

She was particularly concerned about cuts to special education services, which are legally obligated, when other programs without legal requirements were discussed.

Antonia Watts, District 2 board member, shared her frustrations that more scenarios weren’t prepared for Tuesday’s work session, but she encouraged her fellow board members to request more scenarios be developed. As discussions continue, “nothing is off the table,” Watts said, though the school system is in a situation “where we have to be extremely responsible with the dollars that we have.”

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