Error causes Montgomery Co. to lose $40 million for school improvements

An error has led Montgomery County Public Schools to lose nearly $40 million of funding from the state of Maryland for the renovation of a high school.

In a letter to the school board, Superintendent Thomas Taylor said a calculation error led to the loss of state dollars for renovations to Charles W. Woodward High School.

“MCPS has been informed that we will not be receiving $39.3 million in state aid that was expected due to errors in calculating prevailing wage and bid award across the multiple phases of the project,” Taylor wrote in the letter.

Montgomery County Council member Will Jawando told WTOP’s partners at 7News the error came as a “surprise” and was discovered “late in the process.”

“We don’t have enough resources. We’re seeing increases in certain areas across the county and so when you reduce funding from the capital budget or in this case, have reduced state aid, it’s not that the need is reduced, it’s just that you don’t have enough money to fund what we’ve already said we are going to do,” Jawando told 7News.

Taylor recommended funds be shifted from other projects to complete the work.

“I recommend that we transfer $17.7 million in unexpended appropriations from these projects,” said Taylor.

Here are the projects she mentioned:

$7 million from the Building Modifications for Program Improvements Project
$5 million from the William Tyler Page ES Addition project
$3.4 million from the Westbrook ES Addition project
$1.3 million from the Takoma Park MS Addition project
$1 million from the Parkland MS Addition project

But that won’t make up for all the loss. Taylor said the school board should ask the county for a new allocation of $21 million to make up the shortfall and will work to get the state aid back.

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