About eight percent of the Baltimore County Public School’s budget comes from the federal government according to school officials, who said they are weighing the consequences of possibly losing that funding.

George Sarris, the schools’ acting chief financial officer, told the county council at a May 15 budget hearing that they are counting on $178 million in federal grants for next year’s budget. Sarris said about two-thirds of that money will go to low income schools and special education.

“Students in poverty and students with disabilities are those that would be most directly affected,” Sarris told the council.

He added that the Baltimore County Public Schools has about 1,200 positions that are funded with federal grants.

Maryland’s Attorney General Anthony Brown and 18 other attorneys general are suing the Trump administration over the threat of losing funding.

In an April 3 directive, the U. S. Department of Education said federal funding is a privilege, not a right. It said too many schools are violating federal anti-discrimination requirements by using DEI programs to discriminate against one group in favor of another.

“When state education commissioners accept federal funds, they agree to abide by federal antidiscrimination requirements,” according to an education department statement.

Brown, in an April 25 news release announcing the litigation said, “Maryland will not stand by while President Trump tries to bully our state with vague, contradictory demands that would hurt our most vulnerable students and violate the law we've followed for decades.”

Baltimore County Councilman Julian Jones, a Democrat, said he hoped the county government would do whatever it could to help with the litigation to save the federal funding.

“We want to make sure that these reckless and ill-guided cuts that are coming down from D.C. do not affect our kids and the people that work here,” Jones said.