Commissioners meet with school board

Discuss capacities, budget and new high school facility

Friday, Dec. 4, 2009

On Tuesday, the Calvert County Board of Education met with the Calvert County Board of County Commissioners in the Duke room at the Community Resources Building in Prince Frederick.

The first item of business was a presentation of student capacities in school buildings given by Calvert County Director of Planning and Zoning Greg Bowen.

Bowen pointed out that while student enrollment is not changing significantly, all four Calvert County high schools are over-crowded due to a slight "baby boom" in the early 1990s.

Bowen also said that Mount Harmony Elementary School and Northern Middle School, both are which are in Owings, are also over-capacity.

Bowen discussed the possibility of the Calvert County Career Center in Prince Frederick being further utilized, pointing out, "Nobody, I think, goes [to the Career Center] all day long."

He also said that student populations in the high schools could be subject to change in the spring semester as high schools sometimes have fewer students due to factors like early graduations.

Calvert County Commissioner Susan Shaw [R] stated that at a meeting she attended this summer with the Maryland Association of Counties, there was some talk of a few counties increasing graduation requirements for high school students.

"If you increase graduation requirements, you need more capacity," said Shaw, who did not mention Calvert being one of the counties to consider doing so.

Additionally, Calvert County Commissioner Linda Kelley [R] questioned what would happen should representatives the state of Maryland look at any given Calvert County public school and decide capacity could be increased.

"That would really lock down development even more," Kelley mused.

Calvert County Commissioners President Wilson Parran [D] said that all of such considerations will have to be further examined and discussed at future meetings.

Budgets examined

The meeting also included a presentation and update on the 2010 and 2011 fiscal year budgets for Calvert County.

Director of Finance Tim Hayden gave the presentation, stating that in fiscal year 2010 the county received reductions in local aid of approximately $6.5 million with reductions occurring in April and August of this year.

"We eliminated many items [to balance the budget]," Hayden said, explaining that each department head within the county was contacted and asked to trim down his or her individual budget, which reduced the budget by 7.23 percent.

Hayden said that an additional reduction of $820,030 is still needed.

He said that while work on the 2011 fiscal year budget just began about a month ago, "we continue to see real weakness in the items that created issues in 2009."

Calvert County Commissioner Gerry Clark [R] pointed out that the true issues may come to light when preparing the 2012 fiscal year budget and funds from the Federal Stimulus Package of 2009 are gone.

"The stimulus money will be gone and the holes will need to be filled in 2012," Clark said.

Calvert County Board of Education President Eugene Karol pointed out that much of the stimulus funds were hopefully used for one-time, non-recurring expenditures and Parran said that while this was mostly the case, there was some cause for concern.

"2012 could be the worst of all years … if the [economic stimulus] money is all gone, it could be really bad," Parran said.

Update of new high school

Calvert County Public Schools Superintendent Jack Smith gave the Calvert County Commissioners an update on a replacement for Calvert High School in Prince Frederick, which he said he is hoping will start being built in 2011.

He said that the current buildings being used for Calvert High School were opened in 1963 and renovated in the 1970s.

Smith said that while the project recently received $2 million, those funds were progress but, "certainly not enough to dig a hole."

He and Director of School Construction George Leah requested funds from the Maryland Interagency Committee on Public School Construction, or the IAC, in Baltimore on Thursday, Dec. 3.

Smith said in the "best case scenario," the IAC would award the county with $13 to $14 million for the project.

He said that in unsuccessful with the IAC, he and Leah would go to the Maryland Department of Public Works in January.

Smith did say, however, that he was optimistic about the IAC, considering, "This county has taken such good care of our schools that we've never gotten anything but praise."

lbuck@somdnews.com