‘We need more accountability’: Glass calls for reforms to MCPS budget process
Announcement comes ahead of school board’s Thursday vote on $3.72B spending plan
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Ashlyn CampbellJune 4, 2026 11:37 a.m.
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County Councilmember Evan Glass (D-At-large) is calling for reforms to the county school board’s budget process as board members face a decision Thursday on whether to cut more than 400 positions to eliminate a $36 million gap in the fiscal year 2027 Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) budget.
“Our teachers, our parents, and our staff should not have to go through this year after year, waiting for ever-changing budgets to see how they get impacted, some of them for their livelihoods,” Glass, who is running for county executive, said in a Wednesday press conference held in the Rockville County Council building. “We need more transparency, we need more accountability and we need more oversight.”
Glass said Wednesday he is calling for reforms to state law to provide more transparency, increase school board positions from part time to full time and to add a representative from the county executive’s office to the school board. When asked if he would introduce county legislation to address his proposed education budget reforms, Glass noted the school board is an entity created by the state and only reports to the state.
Glass, along with fellow Councilmembers Will Jawando (D-At-large) and Andrew Friedson (D-Dist. 1), are the front runners in the race for the Democratic nomination for county executive in the June 23 primary election.
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Glass’ announcement came after MCPS Superintendent Thomas Taylor announced Tuesday afternoon a revised list of proposed position cuts needed to close the spending gap in the district’s operating budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
The school board is scheduled to consider Taylor’s recommended reductions Thursday as part of its adoption of the $3.72 billion MCPS operating budget approved last month by the County Council for fiscal year 2027, which begins July 1.
Initially recommending more than 430 position cuts, Taylor said that number has been reduced to 415, with the list of reductions now including unfilled vacancies and newly proposed positions — such as 28 new security assistant jobs — in place of some existing jobs that had been on the chopping block.
Glass said he was “beyond frustrated with the process.”
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On May 21, the council adopted a $7.9 billion county operating budget – including the $3.72 billion for MCPS that represented a $143 million year-over-year spending increase for the district. But that MCPS budget represented a $36 million shortfall between the district’s expenses and its approved funding.
Glass said the council and public “truly don’t know where half of [the budget] goes once it goes to MCPS.”
“Once we write one big check, there is no recourse, there is no clarification. Sometimes our questions aren’t even answered,” Glass said. “We need more transparent budgets.”
In a Wednesday statement to Bethesda Today, MCPS spokesperson Liliana Lopez said the district recently changed how it presented its budget to provide more transparency.
Lopez said the new approach “provides the Council with a granular, line-item look at exactly how dollars are spent and requires programs to demonstrate clear outcomes to maintain funding.”
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Glass told Bethesda Today after the press conference that he credited Taylor with being “far more transparent than his predecessors” and said he believed it was due to the council holding the school system more accountable.
“There is still more work to do,” Glass said. “It is a big ship that doesn’t turn on a dime, but they’re certainly moving in the right direction.”
Glass also said during the press conference that school board positions needed to become full time to increase the oversight provided by the board.
Board member positions are part-time and members are paid $25,000 annually. Discussions around making the role full time and increasing the pay have swirled for years at the local and state levels. Formal consideration of increasing pay for board members began in the 2018 Maryland General Assembly session after lawmakers passed a bill authorizing a commission to explore compensation for the Montgomery County school board.
The Board of Education Compensation Review Commission published its findings in 2019. According to its report, the commission found that board members should be paid $60,000 annually, with the board president earning $70,000. In that commission report, former board member Rebecca Smondrowski noted the board was “a part-time job, with full-time hours and one-quarter-time pay.”
Glass told Bethesda Today that a shift to full-time board members would save the county money because the board would be able to perform more due diligence of the school system. He also advocated for an appointed role on the board to represent the county executive office.
In Maryland, school boards can be both elected and appointed, according to the Maryland Association of Boards of Education. Of the 24 school boards in the state, 18 are made up of all elected members and five are a hybrid of appointed and elected members.
For example, the Prince George’s County school board has nine elected members, three members appointed by the county executive and one appointed by the County Council.
In Montgomery County, “there is only so much leverage that a council member has, but we do have to work with our state partners,” Glass said Wednesday. “We want MCPS to work. I want to give them all the funding they need, and I want to make sure all the funding is going where it’s supposed to.”
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Originally published at Bethesdamagazine