The Frederick County Board of Education on Wednesday reduced the school district’s fiscal year 2026 deficit from $2.4 million to $148,557, but stopped short of fully balancing the budget.

To help reduce the deficit, the school board voted to eliminate the Young Scholars Summer School, get rid of an unfilled central office position and reduce the amount of money available to pay lunch monitors, among other changes.

The largest single cut approved by the school board on Wednesday was eliminating the line item for state pension administration fees, which was $1,049,505. The cut was approved unanimously.

Heather Clabaugh, the associate superintendent of fiscal services for FCPS, said the district will not have to pay any state pension administration fees in the upcoming fiscal year as a result of an act passed by the state legislature.

The act eliminated fees for the upcoming fiscal year and ordered an actuarial study to determine how the fees should be assessed in the future. Clabaugh said it is not clear whether that study will result in a reduction in fees.

The school board cut $43,000 from the expense side of the budget by eliminating the Young Scholars Summer School. That cut was approved unanimously.

According to the FCPS website, the Young Scholars are students from groups that are underrepresented in advanced academic programs, including African American students, Hispanic students, multilingual learners and students who receive free and reduced meals.

Through the program, Young Scholars get specialized instruction throughout the school year and participate in a Summer School that also includes an educational field trip.

With the cut approved by the school board on Wednesday, the Young Scholars will still meet regularly during the school year, but the Summer School and field trip will no longer be offered.

The school board cut $103,214 from the expense side of the budget by eliminating a network administrator position that was advertised for the 2024-2025 school year, but was never filled. That measure was approved unanimously.

The most contentious measure passed by the school board on Wednesday was a $201,532 cut to the district’s lunch monitor budget.

The cut was approved 4-3, with school board members Jaime Brennan, Dean Rose, Karen Yoho and Rae Gallagher voting in favor.

School board members Colt Black, Nancy Allen, Janie Inglis Monier were opposed.

Prior to the vote on the lunch monitor budget, Black introduced a motion to eliminate a central office position.

Eliminating the executive director of systemwide operations — a position that is currently filled — would have cut approximately $242,000 from the budget.

Black’s motion failed 4-3.

Monier, Yoho, Rose and Gallagher were opposed. Black, Allen and Brennan voted in favor.

The school board members who voted against wtoo late in the budget process to start eliminating filled positions.

In his comments before the vote on the lunch monitor budget, Black noted that eliminating the position he suggested would have saved a similar amount of money for the district.

“We’re gonna have students and staff of FCPS suffering once again with this decrease in lunch monitors,” Black said.

In her comments before the vote on the lunch monitor budget, Gallagher said everyone on the school board recognized that the cut would have an impact.

“I don’t think any one of us like it,” Gallagher said. “We are really close to where we need to get, so I think this is one of the realities of where we are.”

Before the COIVD-19 pandemic, FCPS did not have paid lunch monitors, Gallagher said. Students were supervised during lunch by a combination of volunteers, administrators and certain support staff.

* Reinstating a credit card processing charge for SchoolCash Online, the system used to pay for field trips and other school activities. The school district has been covering the processing charges for all transactions since the COVID-19 pandemic at a cost of $50,000 per year.

* Using Judy Center grant funding to pay for an outreach coordinator based at Hillcrest Elementary School, saving the school district $61,763.

* Decreasing supplemental pay, or hourly wages someone may receive above their regular salary, by $60,000. Clabaugh said the reduction would resolve a discrepancy between budgeted and actual supplemental pay in past years.

* Decreasing non-salary compensation for central office positions by $21,750.

The school board started with a gap of $24 million between its requested fiscal 2026 budget and the actual allocation provided by Frederick County. It must approve a balanced budget by June 30.

Fiscal Year 2026 starts on July 1.