Hot on the heels of last year's fight over school funding, Superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell will kick off the budget season Wednesday by proposing $76 million in additional construction spending for next fiscal year.

That will increase the system's capital budget to $215 million - money educators say is vital if they're to fix the county's deteriorating public schools.

"It's no secret that in some of our schools, students are being instructed in less-than-optimal conditions," Dr. Maxwell said in an e-mail. "We've simply got to find ways to speed up the pace at which we're chipping away at the maintenance backlog that we...