Anne Arundel County Public Schools (AACPS) was unable to fill its teaching positions this year. It remained at close to 200 vacant positions for most of the school year.
In recent days, we received reports about what neighboring jurisdictions were doing to compete for next year’s crop of new teaching applicants, and the news was ominous. Howard, Montgomery, and Baltimore counties were all coming in at $59,000 and others were in the high 50’s. Our $53,262 seemed like a recipe for failure. We need to be close to the top tier.
That's when our Budget Office crunched the numbers and presented to me a proposal that would raise starting salaries to $58,161 with a $3.1 million annual investment. We can pay for it from cuts agreed to by our administration and the County Auditor earlier this week.
I believe that all seven of our County Councilmembers understand how essential it is that we fill our teaching positions, and will support a supplemental budget request to get this done.
I want to thank the Council, our budget team, the auditor, the superintendent, the school board, and our teachers for working collaboratively throughout this process to deliver for our kids. This is how government is intended to function.
Steuart Pittman
Anne Arundel County Executive