‘Please don’t do this’: MCPS chief outlines potential position cuts

Decision depends on County Council’s budget recommendation

May 12, 2026 11:38 a.m.

Hundreds of Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) educators called for robust school funding during a rally outside the council office building in Rockville. Credit: Ashlyn Campbell

In an email to Montgomery County Council members Tuesday morning, Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) Superintendent Thomas Taylor outlined potential position cuts – amounting to at least 263 full-time equivalent potential reductions – if the council doesn’t provide the full budget proposal from the Montgomery County school board.

“I implore – please don’t do this,” Taylor said in the email to County Council, school board and union officials that was provided to Bethesda Today. “Not only will significant reductions negatively impact hundreds of County employees who live, work, and pay taxes here, but significant reductions to our funding request will have a substantial impact on the services that those hard working teammates provide. … This will take years to repair.”

The email to councilmembers comes after a May 6 council meeting where Taylor said that the district would likely have to reopen union contract negotiations or cut positions if the council does not provide the full amount of money the school board requested.

“Can the school system live without 900 or 1,000 employees and still provide the services that it provides today? Most certainly not,” Taylor said at the meeting. “So that would be forcing the hand of the Board of Education to examine reopening employee agreements with our labor associations.”

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In an interview with Bethesda Today on Tuesday, the leaders of three MCPS education unions – Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA), which represents teachers; SEIU Local 500 which represents support staff and Montgomery County Association of Administrators and Principals (MCAAP), which represents administrators – said the cuts would be devastating. The union leaders said the cuts would negatively impact students, their school experiences and students’ families.

“This is not hyperbole. This does not the unions ringing the bell for fun,” SEIU Local 500 President Pia Morrison said. “This is actually going to mean people’s livelihoods. And this is actually going to devastate students’ education, their social emotional supports in schools. This is going to be catastrophic.”

MCEA President David Stein said the cuts would include reductions to positions, as well as opening contract negotiations with the district.

“MCPS has very few vacancies … when you are talking about cutting hundreds and hundreds of positions, you are talking about laying people off,” Stein said. “The public needs to understand that this is a five-alarm fire.”

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County Executive Marc Elrich (D) in March put forward a proposed operating budget that would have fully funded the school district’s request with a 6% property tax rate increase.

But with a majority of the council opposed to any property tax rate increase next fiscal year, it remains to be seen how much if any additional money MCPS will receive. The council has until June 1 to take final action on the county’s operating and capital spending for fiscal year 2027.

Last month, County Council President Natali Fani-González (D-Dist. 6) offered an alternative budget framework for fiscal year 2027 that did not include Elrich’s proposed property tax rate increase and included lower raises for all county and school employees. The plan was criticized by labor leaders, and last week the council voted to approve negotiated contracts with three unions for government workers, but did not vote on raises for MCPS employees.

The council on May 5 voted to support its Education and Culture Committee’s unanimous recommendation to place the school district’s entire recommended funding increase on the reconciliation list for potential cost savings.

Two members of the Education and Culture Committee — Will Jawando (D- At-large) and Kristin Mink (D-Dist. 5) — recommended that if the council adds any money to MCPS spending for fiscal 2027, it be at least $149 million of the district’s requested $179 million increase.

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Even if the council supports the Education and Culture Committee’s recommendation to increase funding for MCPS by at least $149 million next fiscal year, Taylor told the council, the district’s employees would still be negatively impacted.

In the Tuesday letter to government officials, Taylor said councilmembers advocated publicly and privately for a detailed list of how the district would “reconcile the MCPS budget to a lower funding level than the Board’s request.”

In a video to MCPS staff members Tuesday, Taylor said the council was considering a reduction to the school system’s budget in 10% tranches – amounting to about $17.9 million per tranche. Taylor outlined sections of MCPS employees that would be trimmed if the council decided to move forward with not fully funding the district’s budget request, aiming at reducing impacts on classroom instruction, he said in the video.

According to the list, some of the first positions that could be cut include instructional specialists, elementary, middle and high school media assistants and social workers, college and career navigators and an associate superintendent. Taylor outlined five tranches of potential cuts of about $17.9 million each depending on the level of funding from the council. The County Council is set to vote on the budget by May 21, after which Taylor will make a recommendation to the school board concerning resilience

“This set of recommendations is designed to keep the impact as far away from direct classroom instruction as possible,” Taylor said in the Tuesday email to councilmembers. “None of the options are desirable (actually, they are all horrible and dishonor the positive impact that many of our hard working teammates have given to the County’s children and families). Again, I implore you to consider the gravity of drastic reductions to school services.”

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Originally published at Bethesdamagazine