Leonardtown, MD — The Commissioners of St. Mary’s County have settled on an operating and capital budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1. They are expected to formally sign it May 12. Details of the $226 million budget were formalized during a May 4 budget work session. The decisions at a May 4 budget work session were essentially the same as what had been discussed the week before at the first budget work session.
The budget includes of the property tax rate decline of .5, from $.857 to $.8523, achieving the Constant Yield Tax Rate, which is a rate that fully offsets increased assessments. The reduction causes the county to lose $543,849 in revenue in the next fiscal year.
Commissioner Todd Morgan [R – 4th District] opposed the property tax reduction. Morgan (shown) said the commissioners had made some assumptions in their budget deliberations, including increasing anticipated income tax revenue from three to four percent increase. He said he wanted to take a more cautious approach to budgeting.
The budget includes enough money to fund an additional step increase for both school system and sheriff’s department employees. The additional monies for the schools comes from the county paying off $1.6 million of existing technology leases plus $1.2 million more funding from the state.
The budget also gives more monies to both public and non-public school bus drivers.
On the recommendation of Commissioner John O’Connor [R – 3rd District] the budget also includes a full-time Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) coordinator. Currently ADA compliance is handled part-time by an employee with other duties. That decision did allow the commissioners to remove monies targeted for an ADA study.
Part of the funding of the budget was achieved by using monies from the un-designated fund balance, although the bulk of those monies used next year will be to pay cash for capital projects. More than $9 million will be transferred to capital projects from the fund that started the current fiscal year with $22.8 million. Half of that will remain as the result of the commissioners’ budget decisions this year, although there are other reserve accounts, including a five-percent bond-rating reserve and a BRAC Reserve account.
The Capital Improvement Plan calls for spending $37.8 million for projects such as FDR Boulevard, and a new Leonardtown Library and Garvey Senior Center. A decision on where the library and senior center will be located is expected on May 12.
The commissioners anticipate going to the bond market to raise $11 million of the monies needed to fund capital projects next year.
Contact Dick Myers at dick.myers@thebaynet.com