Last year, as I’m sure was noticed by many students, classrooms at C. Milton Wright couldn’t restock their tissues due to budget restrictions. Last year, the budget proposed by Bob Cassilly reduced HCPS’s budget by $19 million from the previous year and was $39 million below HCPS’s requested budget for that year. This was unprecedented for any Harford County executive and was only viable due to a law passed in 2022 that allowed for a one-time reduction of annual funding for public institutions, a law that Cassilly himself voted against. This was described by parents and HCPS staff as a “worst case scenario” budget for our Public School System.
So, as Cassilly has clearly shown that he would defund schooling to achieve his own political goals, where does the budget stand in 2025? Surprisingly, things are looking good. The 2025 fiscal budget released by HCPS last June showed that there would be an increase of $43 million. In previous years, the schools restricted budget, the money they are required to spend on certain things, has been decreasing. But this has been the first year since at least 2022 that the restricted budget has been increased, from forty to forty-five million.
There is also the matter of the unrestricted budget, the amount of money that schools are allowed to spend in the ways they see fit, which has generally been increasing for years. The unrestricted budget has increased by forty million dollars from the 2024 budget and has increased by almost one hundred million since 2022.
While things may seem okay and that school funding couldn’t be reduced again, Cassilly’s actions show that he is more committed to his own politics than the health and wellbeing of Harford County. While it may not be the school system, we still need to keep watch as to what programs Cassilly plans to slash next, as there’s no telling who he’ll target and how much damage he is willing to do.
https://www.hcps.org/boe/docs/HCPSBudgetSlidesUpdated4-20-23.pdf
https://www.hcps.org/webfiles/WebFilesHandler.ashx?id=4049
https://www.wmar2news.com/local/harford-county-school-system-faces-budget-challenges
