Calvert County Public Schools elections (2014)

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2014 Calvert County Public Schools Elections
Primary Election date:
June 24, 2014
General Election date:
November 4, 2014
Table of Contents
About the district Method of election Elections What was at stake? Key deadlines Additional elections External links
See also
Maryland Calvert County Public Schools Calvert County, Maryland ballot measures Local ballot measures, Maryland

Two seats on the Calvert County Board of Education were up for general election on November 4, 2014. There was a primary election on June 24, 2014, to narrow the field of candidates for two at-large seats down to four candidates. Incumbents Dawn C. Balinski and Eugene "Gene" Karol and challengers Pamela L. Cousins and William J. "Bill" Phalen defeated Billy Saunders in the primary.

Cousins and Phalen defeated the incumbents in the general election.

See also: What was at stake in the Calvert County Board of Education 2014 election?

About the district

See also: Calvert County Public Schools, Maryland

Calvert County Public Schools is located in Calvert County, Maryland

Calvert County Public Schools is based in Prince Frederick, the county seat of Calvert County, Maryland. Calvert County was home to 90,484 residents in 2014, according to the United States Census Bureau. Calvert County Public Schools was the 13th-largest school district by enrollment in Maryland in the 2011-2012 school year, serving 16,553 students.

Demographics

In 2012, Calvert County had a lower percentage of residents with a bachelor's degree compared to the state overall. The United States Census Bureau reported that 29.5 percent of Calvert County residents aged 25 and older had earned a bachelor's degree, compared with 36.3 percent for Maryland. The county’s median household income was $92,395, higher than the state median of $72,999. The poverty rate in Calvert County was 4.9 percent, below the state rate of 9.4 percent.

Racial Demographics, 2012
Race	Calvert County (%)	Maryland (%)
White	82.0	60.8
Black or African American	13.4	30.0
American Indian and Alaska Native	0.4	0.5
Asian	1.5	6.0
Two or More Races	2.6	2.5
Hispanic or Latino	3.1	8.7

Party registration, 2014
Party	Number of registered voters
Republican	23,750
Democratic	23,461
Unaffiliated	11,826
Other	489
Libertarian	248
Green	134
Total	59,908

Note: Percentages for race and ethnicity may add up to more than 100 percent because respondents may report more than one race and the Hispanic/Latino ethnicity may be selected in conjunction with any race. Read more about race and ethnicity in the census here.

Voter and candidate information

As of the 2014 election, the Calvert County Board of Education consisted of five members elected to four-year terms. Three members were elected by district, and two members were elected to at-large seats. There was a primary election on June 24, 2014, and a general election took place on November 4, 2014.

Board candidates submitted their statements of organization and certificates of candidacy with the county elections office by February 25, 2014. Each candidate was also required to submit a filing fee of $25 to the county. State law required candidates to be registered voters and residents of the district.

County residents had to register to vote for the primary election by June 3, 2014. The county offered early voting in the primary from June 12, 2014, to June 19, 2014. The deadline to register to vote in the general election was October 14, 2014. Early voting for the general election took place from October 23, 2014, to October 30, 2014.

Elections

2014

Candidates

• Dawn C. Balinski
  • Incumbent
  • Alumna of Auburn University and the University of South Carolina
  • Treasurer, Maryland Forestry Boards Foundation
• Eugene "Gene" Karol
  • Incumbent
  • Alumni of the University of Maryland-College Park, Western Maryland College, and Nova Southeastern University
  • Former district superintendent
  • Associate professor, College of Notre Dame of Maryland
• William J. "Bill" Phalen
  • Former board member, 1993-2010
  • Retired statistician, United States Census Bureau
• Pamela L. Cousins
  • Veteran, U.S. Air Force

Candidates defeated in the primary

• Billy Saunders
  • Residential mortgage loan officer, 1st Mariner Mortgage

Election results

General

Calvert County Public Schools, At-Large General Election, 4-year term, 2014

Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Nonpartisan	Pamela L. Cousins	28.4%	13,675
	Nonpartisan	William J. "Bill" Phalen	25.9%	12,478
	Nonpartisan	Dawn C. Balinski Incumbent	22.7%	10,926
	Nonpartisan	Eugene "Gene" Karol Incumbent	22.6%	10,898
	Nonpartisan	Write-in	0.4%	174
Total Votes				48,151
Source: Calvert County, Maryland, "Official 2014 General Election Results," accessed December 24, 2014

Primary

Calvert County Public Schools, At-Large Primary Election, 4-year term, 2014

Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Nonpartisan	William J. "Bill" Phalen	23%	4,196
	Nonpartisan	Pamela L. Cousins	22.3%	4,082
	Nonpartisan	Eugene "Gene" Karol Incumbent	20.8%	3,805
	Nonpartisan	Dawn C. Balinski Incumbent	19.4%	3,540
	Nonpartisan	Billy Saunders	14.5%	2,647
Total Votes				18,270
Source: Maryland State Board of Elections, "Official 2014 Gubernatorial Primary Election results for Calvert County," July 16, 2014

Endorsements

The Education Association of Calvert County endorsed Pamela L. Cousins and Eugene "Gene" Karol ahead of the primary election.

Campaign finance

Candidates received a total of $9,385.00 and spent a total of $6,477.76 as of August 19, 2014, according to the Maryland State Board of Elections. State law allows candidates to file Affidavits of Limited Contributions and Expenditures (ALCE) if their campaigns did not accept $1,000 in contributions or spend $1,000 in a particular reporting period.

Candidate	Contributions	Expenditures	Cash on hand
Dawn C. Balinski	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00
Pamela L. Cousins	$960.00	$3,348.59	$-2,388.59
Eugene "Gene" Karol	$4,000.00	$1,229.00	$2,771.00
William J. "Bill" Phalen	$2,335.00	$1,690.26	$1,690.26
Billy Saunders	$2,090.00	$209.91	$1,880.09

Past elections

Information about earlier elections can be found by clicking [show] at the right.

2012 Calvert County Public Schools, District 1 General Election, 4-year term, 2012 Party Candidate Vote % Votes      Nonpartisan Joe R. Chenelly 54.6% 20,074      Nonpartisan Cliff Savoy 45.1% 16,567      Nonpartisan Write-in votes 0.3% 93 Total Votes 36,734 Source: Maryland State Board of Elections, "2012 Presidential General Election Results," November 28, 2012 Calvert County Public Schools, District 2 General Election, 4-year term, 2012 Party Candidate Vote % Votes      Nonpartisan Tracy H. McGuire 99.3% 33,751      Nonpartisan Write-in votes 0.5% 164      Nonpartisan Jason Phillip Delizio 0.3% 86 Total Votes 34,001 Source: Maryland State Board of Elections, "2012 Presidential General Election Results," November 28, 2012 Calvert County Public Schools, District 3 General Election, 4-year term, 2012 Party Candidate Vote % Votes      Nonpartisan Kelly McConkey 53.3% 20,497      Nonpartisan Rose Crunkleton 46.5% 17,869      Nonpartisan Write-in votes 0.2% 89 Total Votes 38,455 Source: Maryland State Board of Elections, "2012 Presidential General Election Results," November 28, 2012

What was at stake?

In the 2014 election for two seats on the Calvert County Board of Education, the candidates included two incumbents, one former board member, and one newcomer. Eugene "Gene" Karol was seeking a third consecutive term, and Dawn C. Balinski was seeking a second. They were joined in the primary by Pamela L. Cousins, Billy Saunders, and William J. "Bill" Phalen, who previously served on the board from 1993 to 2010. Saunders did not advance to the general election, ensuring that at least one candidate with prior board experience would be elected.

Issues in the district

Unexpired terms

Joe Chenelly, the District 1 board member first elected in 2012, announced that he would resign from the board effective November 1. Vacancies on the board are filled by the County Commissioners for the remainder of the term. Additionally, District 3 representative Kelly McConkey ran for the District 3 county commissioner’s seat; if elected, McConkey’s board position would be filled through a commission appointment.

Budget issues

Teachers' compensation

Concerns over teacher compensation arose in the district after the board of education, citing budget constraints, decided to cancel annual raises for teachers. The Calvert Education Association initially planned to boycott school open houses in response, but withdrew due to contractual restrictions on such actions. The association did, however, purchase advertisements highlighting the proposed boycott and criticizing the board’s decision not to provide raises.

At the board's September 11, 2014, meeting, Eugene "Gene" Karol defended the board's budgetary decisions. He stated,

“	First, let me make it very clear that by state law we legally must adopt a balanced budget. In order to do so it was necessary to take $2.6 million of unassigned fund balance money to balance our FY [fiscal year] 2015 budget. This did not even include the new funds that were promised by the commissioners. Over the past three decades, you will see that our boards have done much better than most systems in Maryland in compensating their staff.	”
—Eugene "Gene" Karol (2014)

Healthcare plans

In addition to the salary disputes, the board also had to deal with rising healthcare benefit costs in 2014. The board voted in an October 2014 meeting to share costs with Carroll County Public Schools for insurance consulting services, which Carroll County's board contracted through Bolton Partners. Healthcare is a negotiated agreement with the education unions in Calvert County. However, the unions did not participate in the discussions of the healthcare committee, which reported to the board at the October meeting.

Dominion Foundation grant

On September 11, 2014, the district was presented with $22,000 in grants from the Dominion Foundation, a charitable giving branch of the energy company Dominion. The district received $10,000 to create a forest and outdoor classroom, as well as $1,000 for Sunderland Elementary School's garden program and $1,000 for Mill Creek Middle School's composting program. The remaining $10,000 was allocated to the PLANS program in the county's high schools. The program allows students to study phytoplankton dynamics in Chesapeake Bay.

Key deadlines

The following dates were key deadlines for the Calvert County Public Schools election in 2014:

Deadline	Event
February 25, 2014	Deadline for candidate filing
June 3, 2014	Voter registration deadline for primary election
June 12-19, 2014	Early voting for primary election
June 24, 2014	Primary election day
October 14, 2014	Voter registration deadline for general election
October 23-30, 2014	Early voting for general election
November 4, 2014	General election day

Additional elections on the ballot

See also: Maryland elections, 2014

The school board election shared the ballot with county, state, and federal elections on November 4, 2014. Residents of Calvert County voted in races for county executive, county commission, sheriff, and state's attorney. The general election ballot included candidates for governor, attorney general, and other state executive offices. Voters also chose candidates for state legislative seats and U.S. House seats on November 4, 2014.

See also

• Maryland
• Calvert County Public Schools, Maryland
• Maryland school board elections, 2014
• List of school board elections in 2014
• School board elections, 2014
• Calvert County, Maryland ballot measures
• Local ballot measures, Maryland

External links

Suggest a link

• Calvert County Public Schools
• Calvert County Elections Board