On Thursday, the Maryland Senate passed a strong, comprehensive fix to the state’s broken maintenance of effort law. The legislation—Senate Bill 848—goes a long way to repairing the state and local partnership that funds our schools.

This legislation is critical to protecting school funding for the long term and helping put an end to stagnant salaries, rising class sizes, and more cuts.

SB 848 greatly strengthens maintenance of effort and protects local school funding by creating:

• Predictability and consistency of school funding
• A mandatory waiver process if a county ever funds below MOE
• Increased flexibility for county governments
• A fixed penalty to guarantee that school systems receive funding at MOE levels if a county falls short and fails to receive a waiver

The bill would ensure that counties that have chosen not to adequately fund their schools make the needed investments to provide a great public school for every child in the county and not shortchange our students.

Now, the House of Delegates will discuss and vote on fixing maintenance of effort.We need to urge the House to pass a strong MOE bill and continue efforts to protect school funding. Please click here to email your delegates today.

Failure to fix maintenance of effort will have a direct impact on wages and working conditions. This fight is an important one—and we’re making major progress. Help us get all the way there by emailing your legislators today.

To learn more about maintenance of effort, visit www.marylandeducators.org/MOE.