Baltimore City public school leaders are asking the local government for a 6% budget increase for next year as they adjust to a changing fiscal landscape.
At an initial presentation to the city council Thursday, Chief Financial Officer Chris Doherty said 2025-2026 will be a “stay-the-course year, rather than a major restructuring year.” Federal COVID-relief funding is officially expiring, he said, and teacher salary and utility costs are rising.
“All of which bears out to a principal running her school, and that's why her 6% increase doesn't feel like one,” Doherty said. “It feels maybe like treading water, essentially.”
Doherty added that principals might also notice budget differences from school-to-school because of the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, which allocates funding based on the number of students who are multilingual, disabled, or living in poverty.
“One school can get almost three times more money than another school does,” he said. “That makes a very big difference on the ground.”
Changes to the multi-billion-dollar legislation package, proposed by Governor Wes Moore, will also cause Blueprint foundational funding to decrease slightly. And Baltimore, along with the rest of the state, is still trying to recover from the Trump administration’s decision to not reimburse some pandemic spending.
“Other districts who are implementing the Blueprint, many of them are laying off staff. Many of them are making programmatic cuts,” Doherty said. “So it is important for us to point out that we're not in that position.”
Instead, district leaders are focusing on investing in only the most effective programs and positions through its $1.9 billion proposed budget — which the city council still needs to approve in the coming weeks.
For example, Chief of Staff Alison Perkins-Cohen said the district funneled over $700 million of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds into various tutoring programs.
“We couldn't keep that level of investment with the ESSER money going away,” she said. “But we were able to have good data about what tutoring programs worked, in what subject areas and what grade levels.”
That’s why the proposed budget invests over $10 million in literacy tutoring for the district’s youngest learners. It also includes $7.6 million for summer educational programs and over $32 million for math and reading coaches for teachers.
Student mental health and well-being also takes up a sizable portion of the district’s plan, with a collective $85 million allocated for school counselors, social workers, college and career advisors, and more.
Perkins-Cohen said that as the state deals with its own budget challenges, it’s important for school leaders to advocate for their needs.
“There are a lot of financial pressures on Maryland,” she said. “So we just have to keep making sure we're at the table, to make sure that key investments like education are protected as we try to weather the very storms, many of which are coming from D.C.”
