Board Holds Annual Schools
'Beg-a-Thon'
By Deitrich Curry
Capital News Service
Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2005 ANNAPOLIS - While legislators and school
officials pleaded for more school construction money at an annual session of
the Board of Public Works Wednesday, Gov. Robert Ehrlich made a plea of his
own for support of a future slot machine gambling bill.
"Should a slots bill be passed, there will be another $100 million
dollars a year for school construction," Ehrlich repeated several times
throughout the day.
The annual BPW meeting, colloquially called the "beg-a-thon," is
designated for school officials and leaders to ask for additional state
funding.
School construction projects are known to be underfunded, so the future
slots bill would be a way to bring more money to the building and renovating
of schools, Ehrlich said. Slot machine gambling legislation has failed the
past two years.
Ehrlich has already allocated $155 million for schools, a substantial
increase from the $100 million that he designated last year.
The money is still less than the nearly $600 million that schools
requested for construction projects this fiscal year, according to David
Lever, executive director of the Maryland Public School Construction
Program.
One by one, officials from Baltimore and each county lined up in front of
the Board of Public Works, which consists of Ehrlich, Comptroller William
Donald Schaefer and Treasurer Nancy K. Kopp, to express their need for money
for construction of a new school, renovations or just to replace an old
roof.
But some school officials were quickly reminded that they would not
receive all their requests when interrupted by the comptroller with orders
to cut the list to only a few items.
"Tell me what your priorities are," Schaefer said.
In Anne Arundel County, money was needed for a $4 million all-day
kindergarten facility in Ferndale and air conditioning at Arundel High
School, the only school without air conditioning in the county, costing $2
million.
Baltimore schools originally asked for $33 million, but have received
$4.7 million so far. Their top priorities were the renovation of three
schools.
"We really need $5 billion," said Baltimore City Council President Sheila
Dixon, who was there along with Mayor Martin O'Malley. "But we are only
dealing with the immediate (needs)."
Howard County schools requested $56 million, but only received $3
million. Sydney Cousin, Howard County Schools superintendent, pleaded for
the board to reconsider deferring new school construction projects.
After his presentation, Cousin was asked how much more he expected to
receive:
"None," he said.
No slots bill has been introduced into the General Assembly yet this
session, however, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr., D-Prince
George's, said he intends to present a slots plan to the Legislature and
didn't mind Ehrlich publicizing it.
"It's a very smart political thing for him to do," Miller said.
Some county officials, including Prince George's County Executive Jack
Johnson, did not agree with the slots method for funding schools.
"It's a tax against the poor," Johnson said. "It forces the poor to
disproportionately pay for education."
The Montgomery County Executive has also consistently disagreed with
combining slots with funding education.
"We don't believe the education needs of our children should be held
hostage to expanded gambling," said David Weaver, spokesman for Montgomery
County Executive Doug Duncan. "We oppose slots and the effort of the
government to link slots to funding schools."
Copyright © 2005
University of Maryland
Philip Merrill College of
Journalism
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