Harford County Executive Bob Cassilly said school officials should “stop playing politics” and “face the fiscal reality” of the county’s second year of low revenue growth after the school system requested a funding increase of at least $60 million in the fiscal 2026 budget to maintain current operations.

“There is reality, and there is politics,” said Cassilly, a Republican. “When I say we are pretty much flatlined with revenue and they come back with a $30 million [wage package] increase, they are playing politics.”

Controversy about next year’s budget began after Cassilly posted a video to Facebook on Oct. 11 stating that the school system and the sheriff’s office requested funding increases totaling more than $80 million, and the only way to cover the increase would be to raise property taxes by 20% — which Cassilly said he would not do.

Instead, Cassilly urged the school system to “make tough decisions” he believes officials avoided the last two years.

“The school system made no adjustments to its budget,” Cassilly said. “What we didn’t pay, they funded 100% which is just ludicrous when you can see what is happening with the state and county budgets.”

The “tough decisions” Cassilly noted stem from two years of low revenue growth in Harford County that Cassilly said has forced him to provide minimum increases to the school system.

Since 2014, the county has provided a 3.27% average annual increase to Harford County Public Schools.

“Mr. Cassilly has threatened Harford County citizens that an increase in taxes is necessary to fully fund the education system. This is simply not true,” Superintendent Sean Bulson said in a prepared statement. “HCPS has had to cut services and supports for students. This has created a trend that leaves the school system unable to sustain the operations our community has come to expect from us.”

According to the Maryland State Comptroller, the state experienced revenue growth of only 0.8% in fiscal 2024. Cassilly said Harford is part of a “regional economy” and when state revenue suffers, it impacts Harford.

County Treasurer Robert Sandlass said as of June 30, the end of fiscal 2024, Harford experienced 3% revenue growth and that he anticipates about the same growth level next year.

“Obviously we aim for high revenue growth, but next year we expect at least 3%,” Sandlass said.

During the creation of the fiscal 2025 budget, the Harford public school system requested $354.91 million from the county government to avoid layoffs and program cuts. After Cassilly allocated $321.35 million to the school system — $6.5 million more than the prior year — Harford school officials reduced the budget by $10.6 million, which included the elimination of 22.2 full-time equivalent positions and summer programs.

The schools’ current budget still had a $30 million deficit, and administrators opted to keep all remaining positions and programs, leading them to pull the extra funds from the school system’s $49 million savings account, also referred to as a fund balance.

HCPS communications manager Jillian Lader said the school system’s fund balance is only supposed to be used for one-time expenses, not recurring costs in operating budgets, but school officials believed it was more important to avoid the detrimental impact layoffs would have had on students.

“With a budget that is 85% salary and benefits and the majority of our spending in the classroom, the only way to solve such a large budget variance is to impact the classrooms and that is always a last resort,” Lader said in a statement.

However, fiscal 2025 was the fourth consecutive year the Harford Board of Education used its savings account to cover costs in the annual operating budget. In fiscal 2022, the board used $3 million; in fiscal 2023, it used $4.8 million and in fiscal 2024, the system used $15 million following “flat funding” from the county.

In a Facebook post Tuesday, Harford school officials said the county government “took advantage” of a loophole in the Maintenance of Effort formula — the formula mandating the lowest possible dollar amount a county government can legally allocate to its school system — that allowed the county to withhold at least $12.27 million from the schools during the last two years.

“In 2023, in his first budget and the year inflation rates were starting to recover from the highest inflation rate in 2022, Mr. Cassilly reduced funding to the schools, choosing other priorities over education,” Bulson said. “After two years of Mr. Cassilly’s budgets, HCPS local funding has still not recovered from the decrease in local funding.”

Since the school system does not generate revenue, it is unable to replenish funds pulled from the fund balance, which has created a need for $60 million from the county next year, officials say, which includes an additional $30 million for an employee wage package.  

The school system had been informed of the county’s financial situation, Cassilly said, and so he believes the superintendent and school board are no longer acting in “good faith” by making funding requests that outpace county revenue growth.

“If they came back and pushed for a 5% growth, OK. But for them to come back with the requests, it is just political,” Cassilly said. “They need to sit down and make tough choices because you didn’t do it last year or the year before but you saw the challenges ahead. That is not responsible.”

HCPS officials sent an email to parents, students and staff urging them to participate in a FY26 budget survey that presents scenarios of potential trade-offs HCPS may make to reduce expenses and services. The data gathered will be shared with work groups, committees and the Board of Education to help shape the school’s budget for fiscal 2026. The survey will remain open until 11:45 p.m., Dec. 2.

Have a news tip? Contact Matt Hubbard at mhubbard@baltsun.com, 443-651-0101 or @mthubb on X.