Favorable with Amendment
Committee: Senate Education, Business and Administration Subcommittee
R00A03.04 (Senate)
The Maryland Catholic Conference offers this testimony in SUPPORT of the BOOST scholarship Program allocation included in the proposed FY26 Operating Budget. The Conference represents the public policy interests of the three (arch)dioceses serving Maryland, the Archdioceses of Baltimore and Washington and the Diocese of Wilmington, which together encompass over one million Marylanders. We offer this testimony on behalf of the families of approximately 50,000 students served by over 150 PreK-12 Catholic schools in Maryland, as well as the families of 138,000+ students attending Maryland’s nonpublic schools as a whole.
The Maryland Catholic Conference offers this supporting testimony with amendment for the Nonpublic Student Textbook Program allocation included in the proposed FY26 Operating Budget. This program benefits approximately 80,000 students in nearly 400 of Maryland’s nonpublic schools annually, despite being limited to students who attend schools that charge a tuition lower than the state per pupil average.
The Maryland Catholic Conference opposes DLS recommendations of both a $1.7 million cut from the FY25 Nonpublic School Health and Safety Program; the grants are reimbursement grants with a June 30, 2025 deadline to request reimbursement. With over four months to go, schools are relying on those reimbursements and have often already spent the awarded allocation. This would be a great detriment to the schools by ripping away what the state has already promised them.
However, the recommendation appears to be rooted in a miscommunication or misinformation about thus far allocated, which is in fact almost all or all of the funding allocated for FY25. Additionally, DLS recommends cutting funding entirely for the Health and Security Program for FY26. Again, this recommendation seems to be reasoned in misinformation.
Regardless, the Governor’s supplemental budget No. 2 from FY25 added back in language to reestablish the Nonpublic School Health and Safety Program. This language needs to merely be readded, which was an oversight in the proposed budget, as further evidenced by the funding having been provided for in the Nonpublic Student Textbook Program allocation. Thus, we ask this committee to simply readd the proper language for the Program, for which funding already exists. Funding for this is pooled with the Textbook Program at $8.5 million and the allocation should be $6 million for the Textbook Program and $2.5 million for Health and Security.
The Nonpublic Student Textbook Program saves parents a significant amount of money every year, helping to defray the cost of textbooks and technology. With the technological adjustments required over the last two years, this program has provided more important than ever before. Schools with lower-income enrollments receive a higher allocation of textbook and technology assistance per student. As thousands of lower and middle-income families are served by Maryland’s Catholic schools every year, we urge you to maintain or increase this allocation on behalf of these students and working families, to whom this program provides a much-needed benefit.
Our schools are grateful to the General Assembly for its continued support for nonpublic schools, which educate one in every nine Maryland students. We are also grateful to the administrators at the Maryland State Department of Education, who dedicate themselves in service to our schools to ensure that this and other programs operate successfully.
We respectfully request your continued support for $6 million for the Nonpublic Student Textbook Program in the FY26 budget as a means of supporting our students and families and adjusting the necessary language accordingly for the $2.5 million Nonpublic Student Health and Safety Program.