Carroll schools' capital budget request more than doubles to $81M, even as Liberty High's state funding shrinks

Carroll County Public Schools is asking the county and state for $81,273,712 in capital construction money for fiscal year 2028, more than double the $35,523,014 the district requested a year ago, according to the FY28 Capital Budget and FY29-2033 Capital Improvement Program request presented to the Board of Education for its Sept. 9 meeting.

The request is a discussion item this week. The board is scheduled to take public comment through September and vote to approve the plan, "with appropriate revisions," at its Oct. 14 meeting, after which it goes to the Carroll County Commissioners and the Maryland Public School Construction Program for funding decisions.

It's the largest single-year capital ask CCPS has made in at least seven years, but not by the margin the year-over-year comparison alone suggests. A similar spike hit in FY22, and this year's request tops it by only about 17%:

Sources: FY22 Capital Budget & FY23-27 CIP Request, FY23 Capital Budget & FY24-28 CIP Request, FY24 Capital Budget & FY25-29 CIP Request, FY25 Capital Budget & FY26-30 CIP Request, FY26 Capital Budget & FY27-31 CIP Request, FY27 Capital Budget & FY28-32 CIP Request (amended), and the FY28 Capital Budget & FY29-33 CIP Request presented to the Board Sept. 9, 2026.

FY28's request is the biggest of the seven, but the pattern underneath it isn't a steady climb. CCPS has now put in two outsized asks, in FY22 and FY28, six years apart, separated by five years that all landed in the $36 million to $46 million range. Whether that's a coincidence or reflects some recurring cycle in when major projects hit full construction cost isn't something this document answers.

The Facilities Condition Index tells a similar story once the window is widened. Limited to the four most recent cycles, the number improved for two straight years: 38% in the FY25 plan, 36% in FY26, then 33% in FY27's, before this year's plan projected 37%, a reversal the current budget document doesn't explain. Going back to FY22, though, the full sequence is 39%, 32%, 34%, 38%, 36%, 33% and 37%, a number that has bounced between the low 30s and high 30s in every cycle reviewed rather than following a steady trend in either direction.

CCPS's own FY22 overview letter acknowledged a mechanical reason the number tends to look worse in a plan's outer years: it said that year's six-year request "will lower the projected FCI from 35% to 32% by fiscal year 2024.

However, the FCI is projected to climb to 39% at the end of the CIP due to the lack of capital funding included at the end of the six year plan." That means the index can rise simply because a rolling six-year plan hasn't assigned specific projects to its farthest-out years yet, not necessarily because building conditions are worsening. Whether that same dynamic explains part of this year's uptick isn't stated in the FY28 document, but it's a documented pattern in how these projections behave.

The FY28 spike has two causes, and the district's own overview memo cites both. The first is timing: several HVAC and roof jobs that had been in earlier stages of design and site work in prior years' plans are now hitting full construction cost in the same fiscal year, with complete HVAC system replacements at Northwest Middle ($10,133,000 FY28 request; $23,681,000 total project), Carrolltowne Elementary ($10,623,712; $17,901,000 total), Friendship Valley Elementary ($12,012,000; $16,610,000 total) and Piney Ridge Elementary ($11,270,000; $15,510,000 total), plus a full roof replacement at Century High ($6,415,000; $10,390,000 total). Those five are the district's top state-ranked funding priorities for FY28.

The second is cost inflation. The same overview memo states plainly: "The cost estimates for HVAC Replacement, Roof Replacement, and Prekindergarten Addition projects have increased based on current construction bid market conditions." In other words, some of the jump isn't more work, it's the same work costing more than CCPS expected when it wrote last year's plan.

The four HVAC systems in that group are original equipment from when their buildings were built or last modernized: Northwest Middle and Carrolltowne date to 1976 (50 years old), Piney Ridge to 1991 (35 years old) and Friendship Valley to 1992 (34 years old). Century High's roof replacement is justified on square footage and deterioration risk in the request; the document doesn't give an installation date for it.

The modernization of Liberty High School — the district's top modernization priority, and the subject of a planned feasibility study that will consider building a replacement school outright — has a total estimated cost that has shifted with every year's plan. (It's the district's biggest single facilities project, though not its top FY28 funding priority — the five HVAC and roof jobs above are scheduled ahead of it for FY28 dollars.)

FY25 plan: $143,679,000 FY26 plan: $143,679,000 (unchanged) FY27 plan: $148,694,525 FY28 plan: $141,853,568

This year's overview memo, signed by Superintendent Cynthia McCabe, tells the board plainly why the number moved this time: "The anticipated State funding for the Liberty HS Modernization is $27,000,000 less than last year based on lower projected enrollments. Staff will continue to work with the IAC to increase the number of eligible students." The IAC is the state's Interagency Commission on School Construction.

That single-year figure understates how much the state's total commitment to the project has moved. Under last year's plan, the state was projected to eventually cover $73,165,000 of Liberty's total cost over the life of the project; under this year's plan, that figure is $39,272,000, a $33.9 million drop in the state's total projected share, on top of the year-specific reduction the district's own memo flags.

The project's construction timeline has also moved. The FY26 plan showed the heaviest single year of Liberty spending landing in FY28 ($52,280,000) and FY29 ($35,551,000). The FY27 plan pushed that peak year out to FY30 ($88,453,144). This year's plan keeps the peak in FY30 rather than pushing it further out, but with a lower figure of $77,528,000, about $11 million less than the FY27 plan projected for that same year.

Liberty opened in 1980. According to the current CIP request, it has the lowest combined physical and functional assessment score of any school in the district's 2025 Physical and Functional Assessment Report (which covers schools built before 1990), is undersized at 156,000 square feet for its enrollment, and currently relies on eight relocatable classrooms on-site to make up the difference.

A starker example of how these numbers can move: William Winchester Elementary's modernization was budgeted at a total project cost of $4,751,000 in last year's (FY27) plan, but that figure covered planning and design only, ahead of a required feasibility study, and was entirely county-funded.

This year's plan carries a total project cost of $58,477,000, more than twelve times that figure, once the same $4,751,000 in design costs (now scheduled for FY30-31) is joined by $53,726,000 in newly added site work, construction, equipment and other costs, all currently scheduled for FY33, the last year of the six-year window.

Built in 1962 with additions in 1980, 1986, 1990 and 2010, Winchester has the second-lowest Functional Score after Liberty High among schools in that same 2025 Physical and Functional Assessment Report, a per-school scoring measure distinct from the districtwide Facilities Condition Index cited above. The feasibility study CCPS wants to conduct will also cover master planning for West Middle School, since the two schools share a site.

Beyond the two modernizations and the HVAC/roof cluster, the six-year plan includes:

Robert Moton BEST Program renovation ($4,970,000 total): would create the district's first elementary-level Intensive Behavior classroom placement, a service currently offered only at East Middle and Westminster High for students with more intensive behavioral-support needs under their individualized education plans.

Prekindergarten classroom additions ($35,390,000 total, no FY28 money, starting FY29): CCPS's broader plan calls for one new PreK classroom at 15 elementary schools total, phased in with the state's Blueprint for Maryland's Future mandate expanding voluntary pre-K eligibility; this six-year request funds nine of them: Ebb Valley, Hampstead, Manchester and Winfield in "Phase Two," and Carrolltowne, Eldersburg, Linton Springs, Mechanicsville and Piney Ridge in "Phase Three."

Four recurring, entirely county-funded line items with no state share at all: Infrastructure Renewal ($3,000,000 a year, $18,000,000 over six years), Security Improvements ($1,000,000 a year, $6,000,000 total for cameras, intercoms, access control and "physical improvements to address identified security vulnerabilities"), Technology Improvements ($2,000,000 a year, $12,000,000 total) and Relocatable Classroom Movement (roughly $310,000-$360,000 a year, $2,010,000 total), the last of which the district's own justification ties directly to Blueprint-driven enrollment growth, meaning CCPS expects to keep leaning on portable classrooms for the foreseeable future.

Maryland recalculates each county's state cost-share percentage for school construction every two years, based partly on how much state aid the county receives through the Foundation formula. Carroll's rate was held at 59% from FY19 through FY24, according to CCPS's FY24 budget letter, before dropping to 57% (FY25), 54% (FY26), and back up to 57% for both FY27 and FY28, the current rate. It will be recalculated again in 2027 for the FY29 and FY30 budgets.

The Board of Education is scheduled to receive public feedback through September and return the CIP, with any revisions, for a vote at its Oct. 14, 2026 meeting. If approved, the request moves to the Carroll County Department of Management and Budget, which makes its own recommendation to the Planning and Zoning Commission in February and to the County Commissioners in early March; the Commissioners hold their own hearings before adopting a final county budget at the end of May.

Separately, the capital plan also has to clear the state's Interagency Commission on School Construction process, which requires CCPS to submit its Educational Facilities Master Plan by July 1 each year and its formal Capital Improvement Program request to the Maryland Public School Construction Program by early October.