Oversight of School Spending New Priority

“We did not get all of the answers we needed,” Councilwoman Holton says of school system spending

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By Luke Broadwater

The Baltimore Sun

As the City Council approved the mayor’s $2.5 billion operating budget Monday, members called for greater oversight of the Baltimore school system’s spending.

City Councilwoman Helen Holton, chair of the budget committee, said she wants schools CEO Gregory Thornton to appear quarterly to discuss the schools’ budget after the system faced a multimillion-dollar budget hole and laid off dozens of employees.

Holton, who introduced a resolution calling for regular budget updates from the school system, said the council heard conflicting stories from Thornton and initially did not want to approve the system’s budget. In the end, members felt they had to “in order not to have a disruption to the education of our children.”

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