Tomorrow the Wicomico County Council discusses the FY2011 county budget (as part of legislative session 2010-05.) Obviously a significant chunk of that budget will go to the county’s education funding and County Executive Richard Pollitt conceded “there’s no way” that Wicomico County will meet the state Maintenance of Effort requirements next year. It’s beyond questioning that money is going to be a contentious issue for those who were elected to take care of the budget.
However, the Wicomico County Board of Education (WCBOE) has come under some withering fire lately regarding the travel budget allotted to school personnel. Spearheaded by County Councilman Joe Holloway, this effort found the taxpayers were occasionally footing the bill for everything from meals at Hooters and Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse to the morning coffee at Wawa. While most of the expenditures were on the up-and-up, the attitude reflected by those who abused the process (and paid for the previously-charged expenditures out of their own pocket once it was learned Holloway was on the case) was that of an entitlement mentality.
As mentioned before on my website, the present FY2010 budget has been revised, but in essence only 54% of the budget was at stake – the 46% belonging to the WCBOE was practically untouchable due to state mandates.
It is my belief – a belief shared by a growing number of people – that Wicomico County is not well served by having an appointed school board in charge of holding the schools accountable to the taxpayers. All but a handful of Maryland counties have gone to an elected school board, and I think its long past time to adopt the same here.
As the system stands now, the seven appointed members of the WCBOE come into office via a process rife with the prospect of patronage. Until a change is made, there will always be at least three Republicans and three Democrats on the board, with the pivotal seventh vote awarded to the party whose candidate won the last race for governor. Thus, the first Democratic vacancy which occurred after Bob Ehrlich was sworn in back in 2003 was filled by a Republican and the first GOP vacancy after Martin O’Malley came into office in 2007 was filled by a Democrat. To be more proper, vacancies were filled from a list provided by the local Central Committee of the respective party (so as a member of the Central Committee I had influence on any board member replacing Republicans, except the first GOP vacancy became a Democrat seat.)
If you look at things on that level, it’s clear that Wicomico County may have preferred a 4-3 GOP split based on who they selected as governor since Bob Ehrlich carried Wicomico handily. But the decision was taken out of their hands based on the statewide vote.
While I take my job seriously as a member of the Central Committee, it seems to me that the input of selecting those who are responsible for running our schools should be at a much higher level than a seven- or nine-member body. And looking at things from a strictly partisan basis I understand there’s a risk the voters could select an even more partisan mix of 5-2 or 6-1 Democrats based on voter registration numbers. (While it’s likely the BOE would be a “non-partisan” race, certainly the Democrats will be recommending a slate of candidates as would the GOP.) Yet this also provides an opportunity for those who are politically unaffiliated to have a greater say in affairs as well.
People who are passionate about education tend to be the ones who want to see more local control of their schools. They join the PTA or volunteer in the classroom in order to do their part for the school community.
But the process as it stands now doesn’t necessarily reward these attributes. The folks in Annapolis don’t have much of a body of work to judge would-be BOE members on – usually it’s just a curriculum vitae and application. An electoral system could be set up to allow district representation, giving a person who’s known to the parents of a particular school a better opportunity to serve at a higher level.
In the end, though, it comes down to accountability. The system we have now doesn’t provide for enough, and moving to an elected school board would give the people of Wicomico County the final say on just how a board member is doing.
We can get the process started with leadership on County Council. They can pass a measure to put a referendum on the ballot this fall showing the amount of support there is for an elected school board. Once that passes (as I’m confident it would) then the General Assembly could act accordingly and pass the law allowing BOE elections to occur beginning with the next general election in 2012.
That’s the easy road. If County Council refuses to act, the ballot measure would have to be achieved via petition and getting signatures is a time-consuming process. We could also be at the mercy of outside events, as a 2001 petition drive was shelved in the wake of 9-11.
Joe Holloway is already on record as supporting an elected school board, so I call on his fellow Republicans to lead the way and allow thoughtful Democrats to follow behind if a veto override is needed. Once we get this on the ballot, at that point we can work on just how the transition would be achieved, the question of staggering board members’ terms, and the like. That’s actually fairly easy since we have a number of counties to view as models.
The hard part is getting there, so I encourage the County Council to start the process soon.
I’m surprised by this; I’ve never been involved with Wicomico County schools, and had always assumed that all school districts held elections for school boards. It’s rather disturbing to think that these individuals–who have quite a bit of control over the education of the community’s children–don’t have to answer to the people.
I also favor an elected school board, but it may not mean we end up with a better board than we have today. Look at all the other school districts with elected school boards — many are far from great examples of how a board should be run. One of the main problems with elected school boards is that there is a tendency for teachers’ unions to dominate the election. School board elections aren’t all that high profile and most people don’t pay attention to them. Teachers’ union members, however, have a lot at stake with who gets elected, so they usually devote a lot of resources to electing who they want. If Wicomico gets an elected school board, groups like AFP need to really monitor the elections and ensure that ordinary citizens pay as much attention to them as will union members.