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BILL: HB 53
DATE: January 28, 2025
POSITION: Favorable with Amendments
COMMITTEE: House Appropriations Committee
CONTACT: Mary Pat Fannon, Executive Director, PSSAM
The Public School Superintendents’ Association of Maryland (PSSAM), on behalf of all twenty-four public school superintendents, supports House Bill 53 with amendments.
This bill establishes a Task Force on Education Funding and Student Population Growth. The
task force must (1) analyze challenges related to the delay in student enrollment counts and its effect on school funding; (2) analyze the connection between growing student populations and the provision of school funding; and (3) make recommendations regarding improvements to the provision of school funding. The Office of the Governor must provide staff for the task force.
PSSAM supports the creation of this Task Force and the opportunity to designate a member of the group. With such an impressive number of education stakeholders participating in this Task Force, we propose expanding the charge of the group to include other key components of Maryland’s education funding structure. Specifically, we suggest the inclusion of:
● An adequacy analysis of the Foundation funding amounts for the remaining years
of the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future; this analysis should consider ALL
components of funding education, including transportation, building maintenance,
operating and capital funds for school security, health services, food services,
employee and retiree health benefits; and,
● An analysis of the existing education mandates and the affordability for local
education agencies (LEAs), and State and local government; this should include a
fiscal forecast of local and State revenues to support public education.
Further, we believe the work of the Task Force would be greatly enhanced by the staff assistance of the Department of Legislative Services. The Department would not only bring their fiscal and policy expertise, but their participation would ensure a non-biased and non-partisan critical
review.
For these reasons, PSSAM requests a favorable with amendments report for HB 53.
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