{"id":9387,"date":"2018-02-06T07:00:33","date_gmt":"2018-02-06T12:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=9387"},"modified":"2018-02-05T20:37:21","modified_gmt":"2018-02-06T01:37:21","slug":"where-will-the-apple-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=9387","title":{"rendered":"Where Will the Apple Drop?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco.<\/em><\/p>\n

Many moons ago, when your author was young and blissfully new to the county, we wrote our very first blog post on the mighty Apple Ballot<\/a>.\u00a0 It was unimaginatively titled, \u201cThe 800 lb Gorilla of MoCo Politics.\u201d\u00a0 Then as now, the Apple was one of the most coveted endorsements in MoCo.\u00a0 But my oh my, so much has changed.<\/p>\n

Back in the Age of the Golden Apple, the Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA) was the centerpiece of a powerful political organization created by then-Superintendent Jerry Weast.\u00a0 Weast was not a pro-union progressive by nature, but he understood that politics is a team sport and it was necessary to play it to get money.\u00a0 So the Weast Machine included the education unions (MCEA, SEIU and the principals), the PTAs, the Washington Post editorial page and the school system\u2019s internal Ministry of Propaganda.\u00a0 (That was not its title, but you get the point!)\u00a0 Weast traded real input in the MCPS budget for stakeholders in return for absolute loyalty in joint combat against the outside \u2013 especially the County Council.\u00a0 Anyone who messed with the school system didn\u2019t take on Weast alone \u2013 they had to go against the entire Machine.\u00a0 Weast capitalized on his organization as well as productive relationships with County Executive Doug Duncan and County Council Education Committee Chair Mike Subin to get substantial and regular budget increases.\u00a0 The whole system was greased by strong revenue growth and occasional tax hikes.<\/p>\n

The District 18\/Silver Spring version of the Apple Ballot from 2006.\u00a0 This is the document that began your author\u2019s career in blogging.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Those days are long gone.\u00a0 Three major changes have occurred over the last ten years.<\/p>\n

First, Weast jumped the shark \u2013 not once, but twice.\u00a0 His first big sin was calling union leaders to his house to ask them to endorse Nancy Navarro in the 2008 Council District 4 special election<\/a>.\u00a0 That attracted criticism from multiple Council Members<\/a> as inappropriate conduct by an appointed non-partisan administrator.\u00a0 His second big sin was threatening to sue the county over a budget disagreement two years later<\/a>.\u00a0 These kinds of behavior helped convince Weast\u2019s adversaries that he was not merely an irritant, but an actual threat, and prompted some to brand him a Rogue Superintendent<\/a>.\u00a0 That set the stage for the bitter budget battles to come.<\/p>\n

Second, the county and regional economies were greatly weakened in the wake of the Great Recession.\u00a0 The chart below shows growth in county revenue (excluding intergovernmental aid) over the last twenty years.\u00a0 Red bars indicate years in which major tax hikes were passed.\u00a0 From FY98 through FY09, a generally prosperous economy helped county revenues grow by an annual average of 6.2%.\u00a0 But from FY10 through FY18, the days of the Great Recession and beyond, county revenues grew by an annual average of 3.1%.\u00a0 (That does not include the recent $120 million budget shortfall<\/a>.)\u00a0 There is simply not as much money to go around as there used to be.\u00a0 Accordingly, revitalizing the economy<\/a> should be a huge policy objective for all of the county\u2019s employee unions and everyone else who cares about funding local government.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Third, the local money that was available was not as directed to MCPS as it once was.\u00a0 There are many<\/a> reasons<\/a> for that: the Holy War that broke out between the County Council and the school system in Weast\u2019s final days; dissatisfaction with changes to the state\u2019s Maintenance of Effort law; the state\u2019s execrable decision to shift part of the teacher pension burden down to the counties, which is costing MoCo tens of millions of dollars every year and stifling funding for other priorities; and the growth of many other needs in the county\u2019s budget.\u00a0 Council Member Nancy Floreen defended the county\u2019s record on MCPS funding<\/a> and your author offered a reply<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Whatever the reasons, MCPS has not received operating fund increases commensurate with most of the rest of the government in recent years.\u00a0 The chart below shows budgetary growth by major department and agency from FY10, the peak year before the Great Recession, through FY18.\u00a0 The effects of the recently approved mid-year savings plan<\/a> are shown at right.\u00a0 Note that the time period includes the recession itself, the recovery years afterwards and the FY17 9% property tax hike which was marketed as a boost for education<\/a>.\u00a0 MCPS\u2019s total funding<\/a> increased by 13% over these eight years, roughly half the 25% increase for the total county government.\u00a0 Non-local funding for the schools, the huge majority of which is state aid, went up by 33%.\u00a0 But local funding for the schools<\/a> went up by just 6% as the county spent its own money disproportionately on other activities.\u00a0 Meanwhile, MCPS\u2019s enrollment went up by 15% during this period<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Weast Machine has been shattered.\u00a0 Its demise was due to the decline of the economy, conscious policy choices by county decision makers and, ironically, because of the school system\u2019s own leadership as well.\u00a0 The key moment came in the spring of 2016, when the County Council conditioned its offer of a substantial increase in MCPS funding on a requirement that it go to reducing class size and not to increasing teacher compensation.\u00a0 The Weast Machine would have resisted that condition, but the system\u2019s leadership agreed to it.\u00a0 And so the council voted unanimously to instruct the school system to shift $37 million from employee compensation to class size reduction<\/a> and the school system reduced teacher raises to comply<\/a>.\u00a0 The legacy of this moment is that there is no longer a united front between MCPS leaders and their unions \u2013 a major loss of leverage in the school system\u2019s dealings with county electeds.\u00a0 The end result was not so great for the council either as voters, displeased by the big tax hike that year and not mollified by the compensation changes, went on to overwhelmingly approve term limits<\/a>.<\/p>\n

MCEA runs a Facebook ad against the $25 million mid-year cut to MCPS.\u00a0 The union flooded a town hall meeting with the County Executive to protest it<\/a> but the County Council approved the cut unanimously.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

MCEA will be deciding its 2018 endorsements for county office in the weeks to come.\u00a0 In the contested races for County Executive, Council At-Large and Council Districts 1 and 3, the mighty Apple Ballot could play a huge role.\u00a0 Where will the Apple drop?\u00a0 That depends on how MCEA answers the following two questions.<\/p>\n

What to Do With the Incumbents?<\/u><\/p>\n

Incumbents usually win and MCEA has endorsed the majority of them, including ones who were lukewarm on their issues, in the past.\u00a0 But in this case, most of the incumbent Council Members voted for multiple very<\/a> tough budgets<\/a>, all of them supported reducing teacher raises as a condition of approving more MCPS funding and all of them just voted for a $25 million mid-year cut to MCPS.\u00a0 Can those strikes be offset by other considerations?<\/p>\n

How to Find Someone Better?<\/u><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s be fair to the incumbents: the recession, the new Maintenance of Effort law and the partial shift of teacher pension funding to the counties created very hard choices.\u00a0 No matter what they did, the incumbents would have offended someone.\u00a0 Would the legions of challengers now vying for the Apple\u2019s attention really have done better?\u00a0 Which ones among them understand the very real and very complicated budget issues that face policy makers?\u00a0 Which ones will aggressively pursue economic revival, which is necessary for financing all county services \u2013 not just MCPS \u2013 and supporting justified raises for county employees?\u00a0 Which ones have the competence to deliver and the character to fight for teachers, parents and students alike?<\/p>\n

When those questions are answered, we will know where the Apple drops.<\/p>\n

End Note: For those who wish to study MCPS\u2019s funding history, we reprint the following graphic from the County Executive\u2019s recommended FY18 budget<\/a> below.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. Many moons ago, when your author was young and blissfully new to the county, we wrote our very first blog post on the mighty Apple Ballot.\u00a0 It was unimaginatively titled, \u201cThe 800 lb Gorilla of MoCo Politics.\u201d\u00a0 Then as now, the Apple was one of the most coveted endorsements in MoCo.\u00a0 But … Continue reading Where Will the Apple Drop?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[151,293,33,35,32],"tags":[1545,2116,1368,1476,1475],"class_list":["post-9387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-apple-ballot","category-budget","category-mcea","category-mcps","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-apple-ballot","tag-budget","tag-mcea","tag-mcps"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-2rp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9387"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9395,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9387\/revisions\/9395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}