From Harford County Public Schools:
You’re Invited…FY 2015 Budget Development Underway
Superintendent Canavan invites you to participate in the following public budget input sessions:
Tuesday, October 22 at 5 p.m.
C. Milton Wright High School
Friday, October 25 at 3:30 p.m.
Patterson Mill High School
In addition, a livestream presentation will be available for on-demand viewing on www.hcps.org as of Thursday, October 24 at 10:00 a.m.
During the public forums, there will be a brief presentation on the budget development process, an introduction to our new online budget input tool and time to provide budgetary recommendations. Members of the community are always welcome to email ideas and suggestions to budget@hcps.org anytime throughout the budget process. The Board will also hold numerous budget input sessions in January. More information will be forthcoming when those dates are finalized.
How about letting the teachers of HCPS donate sick time to Nick Selvi if you want to do something worthwhile. How about letting him teach the kids music and not lock him out of the school if you want to do something. DISGRACEFUL!!!!!!!!!!
I support allowing HCPS employees to donate sick days to help Nick Selvi. Unfortunately, our Human Resources Department has no heart. They have no concern for their employees. I was challenged to return to work using a cane following an injury. I reminded HR that there are employees using scooters, crutches, etc. and are allowed to do their jobs. HR was just trying to use up my hundreds of sick days I have saved over decades of employment. Bring back the common sense approach to management again. This crew at the Board are heartless.
The article in the Aegis talks about school officials trying to involve the public in the budget planning process. This process will lead to no substantial budget cuts. The Board of Education and the Harford County Government is in capable of making significant spending cuts. The ironic factor is that it does not matter whether the Republicans or Democrats are in control as neither part desires to cut spending as this decreases their power. Just look at David Craig’s term in office. The budget is greater today than it was when he first came into power. Nobody can convince me that every program that was already in place when he took office and any subsequent program he implement is function well. However, programs are never eliminated. I am sure that when Barry Glassman assumes office, the budget will continue to increase.
In the article, parent Elizabeth Larson suggested that the school board and the county executive should come together to resolve budget issues. “It’s up to them to work together and think outside the box and we need to find creative solutions.” This is a great idea, but neither the Board of Education nor the County Executive is capable or desires to decrease spending. I would bet that neither of them could name programs that should be cut.
Here is an out of the box idea that will never see the light of day. I challenge the Harford County Government and the Board of Education to review every program and service to determine which of these services may be outsourced to a private company. I personally believe that other than police, fire, and teachers, any other service could be outsourced to private industry. I’ll come up with the first five.
• The circuit court and district court (not the judges, but the staff that runs the courts).
• Parks and Recreation
• IT support
• Electrical services
• Animal control
On the Board of Education side
• Janitorial staff
• School bus transportation
• Cafeteria personnel
• Maintenance
I am not suggesting that the employees lose their jobs. The private sector companies should hire the existing staff, at least the good performing staff. This would result in a tremendous savings to the county as the county would pay a private company to manage these and other services. The county is no longer responsible for all the Human Resource duties and costs, including healthcare and the unfunded pension liabilities. The number of buildings would be greatly reduced and unused building and school buses could be sold or leased to the private companies now providing the service. If this is done effectively, both the government and Board of Education could be managed out of one building.
In case you are worried about a decrease in the level of service, this could be handled in the contracting phase as the government could stipulate in the contract that the private company must maintain or exceed the same level of service currently provided by the government. Also, in the contracting process a backup company would be chosen in case the selected company did not perform to expectations. It is too bad that this idea will never see the light of day as it may save enough money to provide teachers with the raises they desire.