The Harford County Board of Education has taken $2.5 million from its reserve fund and applied it to the fiscal 2026 budget to fund teaching positions and reduce the growth in class sizes.

The funding amendment gives Superintendent Sean Bulson the authority to use the $2.5 million to hire kindergarten through third grade teachers. Board members passed the amendment in a 9-1 vote, with Vice President Melissa Hahn casting the dissenting vote, Monday afternoon.

Grades K-3 were specified due to the rising number of students and growing class sizes in those grades. According to school officials, $2.5 million could fund about 25 educators.

The number of educators to be hired at each grade level has not yet been determined.

At the start of the fiscal 2026 budget season, Harford schools looked to cut 167 positions due to a $60 million budget deficit largely caused by increased costs and the board’s decision to use $30 million of its reserve fund to balance its 2025 operating budget.

The district’s reserve fund could not sustain the $30 million expense for a second year, which left the school system with a choice for 2026: cut its budget or ask for funding from the county government. County Executive Bob Cassilly declined to provide the additional $30 million, which resulted in a variety of staff and program cuts.

Harford schools’ fiscal 2026 budget is made up of:

  • $347.6 million from the county government — an increase of $26.24 million over this year
  • $306.77 million from the state — an increase of $10.69 million over this year
  • $420,000 from the federal government — consistent with this year
  • $5.21 million in “other” funding — consistent with this year
  • $10 million from its reserve fund — $20.2 million less than this year

With Monday’s amendment, the school system will use $12.5 million of its nearly $20 million reserve fund.

Through budget reconciliations, the district cut four administrative personnel, one clerical staff employee and 149 teachers, counselors, and psychologists, but added seven paraprofessionals and seven technical staff. Of the 140 positions cut from the unrestricted portion of the budget, which the school system has full control over, 123 were teachers.

In the system’s restricted budget, composed of grants and other funding from the state or federal government that have specific spending restrictions — 10.80 teacher/counselor positions were eliminated and 30 “other” positions were added.

The board’s final budget showed an overall staff reduction of 120 positions, bringing the total number of school system employees to 5,598. School officials explained that none of the cuts led to firings or layoffs since all of the eliminated positions were through attrition, retirement, or reallocation of personnel to different schools or grade levels.

The cuts resulted in more than $16.5 million in savings but sparked concerns among board members who feared the cuts would lead to larger class sizes.

“We can function as a school system without middle school sports, we can function as a school system without travel expenses, we can function as a school system without Harford Glenn,” said Hahn. “Is it nice to have those things? Absolutely. But we need to look at cutting those things before our teachers.”

Hahn made a motion to allocate an additional $10 million from the board’s reserve fund to the budget to fund teaching positions, bringing the total reserve fund usage for next year to $20 million.

Hahn’s motion failed.

Board members Terri Kocher and Diane Alvarez shared similar class size concerns, noting that the increased workload from large class sizes is causing teachers to leave the profession.

“These are numbers we have seen before, and we can hope over time that we can slowly chip away at bringing class sizes down a bit,” Bulson said. “I still stand by the [budget] just from experience and a recommendation of what we need to do with the district.”

Despite Bulson’s optimism, board President Aaron Poynton explained that large class sizes equate to poor student performance and problems within the classroom. He made the motion to use an additional $2.5 million from the reserve fund, the board could reduce costs next year to make up the amount and avoid using additional reserve funds in the future.

“Anything that comes out of the fund balance is likely to be a recurring cost, which means we either have to find that money again, beg for it from the state or the county, or find other areas to cut,” Poynton said. “I do believe there are some areas that could be cut, but in the 11th hour, I am not interested in working through that because we have already done quite a bit of work to get here.”

The overall operating budget passed in an 8-1-1 vote with Hahn casting a dissenting vote and Alvarez abstaining.

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