A group of parents is challenging the vote taken last month by the Baltimore County Board of Education on this coming year’s budget.
The group is asking the Maryland State Department of Education to nullify the school board’s Feb. 24 vote, claiming it was illegal.
At a news conference Friday, Baltimore County School Superintendent Myriam Rogers said counsel for the board of education had reviewed the vote and determined it had been done legally.
“At this point we consider the issue settled and will continue focusing on the needs of our students and educators,” Rogers said.
The Baltimore County Parent and Student Coalition counters that the school board budget vote was taken hours after one of its members, Robin Harvey, filed to run for the Maryland House of Delegates.
Under state law you can’t run for office while serving on the school board. If Harvey hadn’t voted the budget would not have passed.
In its appeal to the state, the group wrote “that because the budget passed by a narrow 7-4 margin, the inclusion of an ineligible vote rendered the action legally void.”
Seven votes are needed to pass the budget.
County Councilman David Marks said the school board should take another vote.
He believes it would pass overwhelmingly now, because on Friday Rogers and County Executive Kathy Klausmeier announced there is an additional $9.3 million for the school system. That means BCPS can restore about 140 of the nearly 600 positions it had planned to cut, making the budget more palatable.
Marks said the school board needs to find a way to be less fractured.
“There are too many split votes on that board,” Marks said. “With a new superintendent and perhaps new members of the school board we can have that consensus.”
The parents group is asking for an expedited review because Klausmeier will present her budget, which includes school spending, to the county council in less than three weeks.
Asked if a possible revote on the school budget could impact her spending plan she will give to the county council on April 16 Klausmeier said, “I guess we’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.”
