The St. Mary’s County Commissioners, on a 3-2 vote, have approved the hiring of two universities to begin work on the county’s “Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS).” The county will pay the University of Maryland $86,796 and Towson State University $61,312, out of $250,000 that has already been budgeted for the CEDS.

The University of Maryland will conduct what is known as a SWOT Analysis, which stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. According to Acting Director of the Department of Economic and Community Development Robin Finnacom, they also will look at rural business development, with an emphasis on agriculture and seafood industries, and also the tourism and hospitality industries.

Towson University, on the other hand, will analyze the current business community and investigate the current defense climate, especially the effects of sequestration and future downsizing. They also will provide the county with the software they develop at the end of their study.

The two universities will work with the newly reconstituted Economic Development Commission, which recently held its first meeting. Finnacom, at that meeting, talked about what the two universities will do for the county and the EDC’s role in that effort.

Commissioners Dan Morris (R: 2nd) and Lawrence Jarboe (R: 3rd) voted against the expenditures. Morris said the two projects were an attempt to do too much at one time. He called it “a shotgun scattershot approach.”

Finnacom, however, said the two studies were complementary and did not overlap.

Commissioner Cynthia Jones said the county was behind some others in the same boat in doing such work. “If you are going to get anything done you have to know where you are…and where you want to go,” she said.

Morris responded, “I know where I am. I am in St. Mary’s County, Maryland. I want to know where we want to go.”

Jarboe argued that with the other money issues, such as the problems with the current school board budget, the monies should be reallocated.

The county’s CEDS effort is also being supplemented with a $25,000 state grant.