ROCK HALL — The Kent County Board of Education is scheduled to vote on the superintendent’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 at a special meeting Monday night, May 5.
The proposed spending plan for the fiscal year that begins July 1, 2025 was the only topic of discussion at two separate meetings this week.
The school system is expected to bring in $30.9 million in funds from local, state and federal sources, but has projected expenditures of $32.7 million.
To help close the $2 million funding gap, 36 positions may have to be eliminated.
At the April 28 public hearing on the budget, Superintendent Mary McComas pointed to two reasons for the deficit: declining enrollment and loss of emergency funds awarded to the school system after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Even with offering early retirement incentives to staff who are eligible, the school system is still $800,000 short and has asked the Kent County Commissioners for the additional funds. If the request is turned down, McComas said, the school system will have to make more cuts from personnel.
“We are going to have to make difficult decisions even if we get a more favorable outcome than we’re anticipating (from the commissioners). Thirty-six people are not going to retire and if we end up having to eliminate 44 (positions), that’s the equivalent of an entire school,” said board President Trish McGee.
Board member Frank Rhodes said that he understands the commissioners wanting the school system to spend every penny in its fund balance, but it is against board policy to leave less than $500,000 in fund balance.
“I know they say they will be there to help us, but what if they aren’t in the same position as they are now in three years? It will be nice to have that little cushion for emergencies,” he said.
At a May 1 town hall that McComas hosted, she fielded questions from an in-person and virtual audience that mostly centered around eliminating positions. The superintendent emphasized that cuts are happening across the entire school system, not just in the classroom.
“There is a misconception in the air that only teachers are being reduced. That is inaccurate. Reductions are being made in all employee categories,” McComas said.
She said that because of the school system’s attrition rate and the early retirement incentive package, “it is looking like we may not lose any teacher positions.”
McComas said she is going through all the school system’s grants to see where salaries can be shifted out of the operating budget and onto grant funds.
As an example, she mentioned the community coordinator position that is tied to a Concentration of Poverty grant KCPS gets for its Community Schools, which are schools that serve areas with a high percentage of the student population living in poverty. McComas said her hope is to be able to hire an internal candidate whose position may otherwise be eliminated.
She said it is a common misconception across all school systems that the central office staff is bloated.
Kent’s administrative staff is “lean” and most of the positions are grant funded, McComas said. Nevertheless, she is looking where cuts can be made.
Since declining enrollment is the main reason behind KCPS’ budget deficit, McComas was asked what she is doing to draw families to the public school system.
She said she is working with the communications team to develop a public relations and marketing plan highlighting all that KCPS has going for it that other school systems do not. As an example, she mentioned H.H. Garnet Elementary School’s and Kent County Middle School’s proximity to the Kent Cultural Alliance in Chestertown and visiting artists.
“Our students are given opportunities and experiences that other students in Maryland are not because of these partnerships,” she said.
With a potential increase in class sizes, McComas was asked what resources would be available for students with behavioral issues and what she thought an ideal class size was.
In addressing the concern around class size, McComas said that some of the classes in Kent County are very small, some as small as 15.
“I have found, and the research I’ve seen,” she said, “has shown an optimal class size is 18 to 20 students.”
Ideally the larger classes will be at the middle or high school level and the elementary school classes will stay small, but overall class size will be determined by enrollment and course availability. There are certain classes at the high school level, such as carpentry, automotive and culinary arts, that enroll a limited number of students because of safety issues, she said.
“I have walked in the shoes of a teacher with a large class size of more than 30 students and I would like to avoid that,” McComas said.
The final question of the evening was around federal funds for KCPS, especially Title I funds, and if the school system was in danger of losing federal funding.
“Federal grant funds, which is what Title I is, are codified in law through Congress and to lose them will take an act of Congress. I cannot predict what Congress will do, but as of now we are not losing any federal funds,” McComas said.
She said the federal government made the decision to not reimburse some state school systems for money that was spent under emergency COVID funds, but that Maryland was fighting it in court.
For more information about KCPS’ fiscal year 2026 budget, or to submit a question via email about the budget, visit the Fiscal Year 2026 Budget page on the school system’s website, www.kent.k12.md.us.
The May 5 meeting will start at 5:30 p.m. in the Kent County Public Schools administrative building, 5608 Boundary Ave. in Rock Hall.
McComas is scheduled to present the budget to the Kent County Commissioners on Tuesday, May 6.
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.