budget
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One way the teachers’ union and MCPS manipulate teachers
Read more: One way the teachers’ union and MCPS manipulate teachersDuring the teachers’ union’s disruptive sit-in in May 2023, Rebecca Rothstein, educator and union representative, made the following argument as to why the public schools need to be “fully funded.” I’ve wanted to be a teacher my entire life…How dilapidated are our school buildings. How hard is it for teachers to pay their bills today.…
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The fallacy of MCPS’s top 100 salaries
Read more: The fallacy of MCPS’s top 100 salariesMoCo360 released a blockbuster list of the top 100 earners at MCPS. The most outrageous, elitist, and abominable aspect of this list is that I’m not on it. Outside of that, there really isn’t anything wrong. It really is OK that the school Superintendent Monifa McKnight made $342,400/year. Let’s do some critical analysis. Those top…
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Should Board of Education Positions Be Full Time?
Read more: Should Board of Education Positions Be Full Time?Physicists have known something interesting for quite some time: applying a force on an object moves that object, and applying more force on that object moves that object even more. Through an often painful political maturation, I came to a similar conclusion in matters of public policy. If you have a policy that produces poor…
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Household and Government Debt Way Up in Maryland… So of Course Montgomery County’s Exec Wants to… Spend More!
Read more: Household and Government Debt Way Up in Maryland… So of Course Montgomery County’s Exec Wants to… Spend More!New research from Forbes Advisor shows that Maryland sits just outside the top-five of states with the most “combined” debt. Forbes in this case defines total debt as “household debt” and “government debt”. Why does this matter? Well, for starters, elevated government debt thanks to Democrat-controlled Annapolis means that: When a state owes more than…
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Why Is Montgomery County Giving Taxpayer Money to a “Micro-Lender” Requiring No Credit Score, No Employment, No Address, No Immigration Status from Its Borrowers
Read more: Why Is Montgomery County Giving Taxpayer Money to a “Micro-Lender” Requiring No Credit Score, No Employment, No Address, No Immigration Status from Its BorrowersIn yet another blow to fiscal stewardship of the taxpayer dollar in Montgomery County, data from the MoCo “Checkbook” in 2023 reveals that Montgomery County’s “Economic Development Fund” gave a nonprofit corporation called Life Asset Inc. a $50,000 check in May, 2023. See our screen shot below: Life Asset Inc. says it is a “nonprofit…
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Montgomery County Paid Something Called “Energy Audits and Green Solutions, LLC” $3.31 Million in 2020: What Exactly Was It For?
Read more: Montgomery County Paid Something Called “Energy Audits and Green Solutions, LLC” $3.31 Million in 2020: What Exactly Was It For?Montgomery County appears to have a transparency issue with how it discloses its vendor information to the general public or those seeking more details from the data and county spending source(s) housed at spending.data.montgomerycountymd.gov. As Mr. Reardon “Sully” Sullivan (a former candidate for Montgomery County Executive) has documented, “as all organizations must do, the Montgomery County…
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Investor Beware: MoCo Govt Issues More General Obligation Bonds as ‘Debt Servicing’ Projects
Read more: Investor Beware: MoCo Govt Issues More General Obligation Bonds as ‘Debt Servicing’ ProjectsMoCo debt service cost are on a glide path to consume more and more resources in budgets that should be going into the actual MoCo body politic.
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Economic Storm Clouds Are Gathering, But the Montgomery County Council Seems Pre-Occupied with Other (National) Topics
Read more: Economic Storm Clouds Are Gathering, But the Montgomery County Council Seems Pre-Occupied with Other (National) TopicsEconomic storm clouds are gathering for the nation’s economy, and Montgomery County will not be immune to an economic recession. The combination of high debt burdens (consumer, corporate, and government), still too-high inflation, high energy costs and higher interest rates are slowing economic growth to a trickle, and potentially feeding a cycle of yet more…
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The 2024 Budget Vote, When the Reformers Failed Us
Read more: The 2024 Budget Vote, When the Reformers Failed UsAndrew Friedson is by far a more compassionate, thoughtful, and caring member of the County Council than its progressive members, and CM Marilyn Balcombe has earned well deserved credibility as an advocate for a much neglected up-county population. Tragically, when it came to their votes for the 2024 budget, both let us down. Before we…
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MoCo Retiree Healthcare Plan (“Post Employment Benefits”) is Badly Under-Funded
Read more: MoCo Retiree Healthcare Plan (“Post Employment Benefits”) is Badly Under-FundedMontgomery County’s Consolidated Retiree Health Benefits Trust (the fund used to pay out retiree healthcare expenses for former MCPS and Montgomery College employees, among other county retirees) is under-water and has less then 50% of the assets needed to satisfy projected liabilities/claims in the years ahead, per official reporting issued by Montgomery County government and…