Within the last week over 1,000 employees were laid off from the State Department. More layoffs are coming at the Department of Education. According to “National Public” Radio (not much of either), as of June 6 this year 59,000 federal jobs disappeared since Trump entered office. There is surely more to come.
For some of them, the twenty-somethings and the seventy-somethings, unemployment is disconcerting but hopefully not the convulsion it is for middle-aged workers. Nevertheless, the DC area is taking a big hit from these federal layoffs, and MoCo is absorbing its share.
Look at the distraught employee in this lead image, which achieved worldwide exposure. After being laid off on July 11, 2025, she (or someone like her) went home and opened her MoCo property tax bill that she received the same week—as many of us did. The balance due is higher than last year, as it was the year before that.
The school budget consumes an astonishing 47% of the county’s revenues. The implication is that almost one-half of your property tax payments go to the public schools. The budget for those schools is heavily influenced by the Montgomery County Education Association (teacher’s union). Currently, the head of the teachers’ union is David Stein.
A 5% decrease in the MCPS budget translates to a 2.3% decrease in the county’s budget, and would provide tax relief to everyone in the county—including distraught federal workers who are facing some very difficult times. Is it too much to ask for a 5% decrease in an operating budget of $3.6 billion? Go to any MCPS high school or MCPS headquarters, and you will quite easily find 5% of the resources (human and capital) underutilized. (Remember, our school system has enough resources for unnecessary and losing Supreme Court litigation and cushy severance payments to a failed superintendent.)
Those of us who are politically sophisticated know quite well that the teachers’ union in general and David Stein in particular have the wherewithal to allow a reduction in the school budget—at least until the Trump layoffs have stabilized and we have a clearer picture of who can still afford to live here. That’s called living with reality.
There is a human component to this difficult situation: how can Mr. Stein look at our county’s laid-off feds and demand that they pay even more in property tax bills to fund his over-capacity school system? That’s called living with compassion, or the lack of it.
