ROCK HALL — Following a policy change and some heated discussion, the Kent County Board of Education in a split vote earlier this month approved spending down its contingency fund as part of the budget process for fiscal year 2026.
Option B, which was presented by Superintendent Mary McComas at the May 5 special meeting, would preserve 16 employee positions for the 2025-26 academic year and would use more of the board’s contingency fund to help fill the funding gap.
The loss of COVID grants, which expire this year, and continued declining enrollment have led to an approximately $2 million budget deficit for Kent County Public Schools.
According to the draft budget, the school system is expected to bring in $30.9 million in funds from local, state and federal sources, but has projected expenditures of $32.9 million.
To help fill the gap, McComas originally presented a spending plan that would require the school system to cut 44 positions and request $800,000 in additional funding from the Kent County Commissioners. Option A, as it came to be known, would preserve the board’s contingency fund of $500,000 per board policy.
At the May 5 meeting, McComas presented Option B, which would use more of the board’s contingency fund and require a change to board policy.
Option B would save 16 positions for one year and would lower the request of additional funds from the commissioners to $300,000.
McComas stressed that no matter what option the board chose, positions would need to be eliminated to fill the gap in funding.
“The benefit to Option B is those 16 people would have a year’s notice that their position is going away at the end of fiscal year ’26,” she said. “No matter what, those positions will go away whether we do it now with Option A or later with Option B. … Our dilemma, unlike most school systems that may have hit a bit of a rebound in their enrollment, our enrollment has just continued to decline. We are catching up with declining enrollment over the last five years.”
Board President Trish McGee explained that under the board’s existing policy, $500,000 must remain in the contingency fund. Therefore, the board had never spent down the contingency fund, despite repeated requests from the county commissioners to do so.
She said the policy was put in place in 2018 after the closure of Worton and Millington elementary schools.
Board Vice President John Queen expressed concerns about spending down that much of the contingency fund, especially with the age of Kent County’s school buildings.
“We all have empathy for the people that are about to lose their jobs. We all know these people because they are in our community, but there is a time to right size things. … We are here to make tough decisions. I don’t think we should be touching this money because it puts us in a very vulnerable position,” Queen said.
He called Option B “a Band-Aid over a Band-Aid on top of gauze” and not a true fix to the problems facing KCPS, mainly declining enrollment.
Board member Frank Rhodes agreed with Queen that the board was in “unchartered waters and we will be exposed if we have a major expense come up,” but said the board needed to trust its funding partners in the county commissioners and work to build a sincere working relationship.
“I don’t want to leave us exposed but we need to do something,” he said.
McComas said that under the board’s existing policy the board is allowed to access that $500,000 limit of funds in case of an emergency. She then asked if the board didn’t access those funds during a global pandemic and wouldn’t access those funds when 12% of the school system’s workforce could be cut, “then what constitutes the use of those contingency funds?”
McComas said one way she could see the board needing those funds would be if the federal government did not send Title funds to the school system, including Title I and Title IX dollars, but there was nothing to make her think that was going to happen.
“By no means I’m not saying this is not a calculated risk,” she said.
Rhodes made the motion to change the board policy to allow the superintendent to access the contingency fund for more than the $500,000 limit. Board member Laura McKenzie seconded the motion.
The policy change passed 4-1, with Queen casting the lone dissenting vote.
Rhodes then made a motion to adopt Option B as the fiscal year 2026 budget. McKenzie seconded the motion. Board member Aretha Dorsey also voted for Option B for a 3-2 majority.
Queen and McGee voted “nay.”
McComas presented the budget to the county commissioners at their Tuesday, May 6 meeting. The commissioners unanimously approved an additional $300,000 for the school system.
All three commissioners praised McComas for her hard work.
“I give you a great deal of credit for resizing the system, making the changes. Because of the job you’ve done, recognizing the problem, and having the guts to deal with it, I’m going to support you,” said Commission President Ron Fithian.
The commissioners are scheduled to vote on the county’s fiscal year 2026 budget at their June 3 meeting.
The new fiscal year starts July 1.
Trish McGee, owner and publisher of The Evening Enterprise, is president of the Kent County Board of Education. She did not contribute to this report.