Frederick County Council votes down attempts to trim budget plan

May 11—The Frederick County Council on Tuesday rejected attempts to trim $6 million from a budget proposal for the next fiscal year.

Democratic County Executive Jan Gardner has proposed $792 million budget for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1 — an increase in spending of about 10% from the current year.

Republican Councilmen Steve McKay and Phil Dacey originally cosponsored a total of 13 amendments, totaling more than $10 million in cuts to what Gardner proposed. But the councilmen withdrew three of their amendments, totaling $4 million, during the meeting.

The council will vote on whether to approve the budget May 17.

The councilmen said their goal was to free up funds to lower the county's property tax rate. The pair have proposed similar budget cuts, and had them voted down, each of the last three years that they've been on the council, McKay said.

"It's easy to spend all the revenue we collect," McKay said during the meeting. "It's really hard to find ways to give some of it back. And that's really what is motivating this."

But Gardner said the proposed cuts would not have freed the funding that the councilmen had hoped for.

"They're putting things out there that they know won't generate any money," Gardner said in a phone interview Tuesday. "It's just a charade."

The amendments included reducing by $3 million the amount for salary raises for some county employees, which Gardner called an "egregious devaluing of our county employees."

"Advancing these budget amendments to cut county employee salary improvements sends a very clear message that you don't appreciate or value our employees," Gardner wrote in an email to council members Tuesday, in which she singled out McKay and Dacey.

The county needs the full budget allocation to bring county employee salaries to a competitive wage and to be able to maintain government services, Chief Administrative Officer Rick Harcum said during the meeting.

"It's becoming really difficult to deliver services the way our constituents expect us to," Harcum said of the county's high turnover rate and the vacancies a number of departments are experiencing.

The council took a separate vote for each amendment. For nearly every tally, McKay and Dacey were the only members to vote favorably.

Councilman Jerry Donald, D, was absent from the meeting.

The councilmen proposed cutting 10 additional county positions from Gardner's budget, including one to assist with outreach to and communication with the county's Spanish-speaking communities, for a total of more than $770,000.

The amendment would have cut funding for some positions that have already been staffed and that the council already voted to approve.

Gardner said it was "inconceivable" that the councilmen would propose striking from the budget funding for positions that were already staffed.

McKay voted against the amendment despite being a cosponsor.

The councilmen withdrew an amendment to strike from the budget $2.8 million for a project to upgrade the heating, venting and air conditioning at the Rose Hill Manor Park Carriage Museum after learning from the county staff that the funds would not have been available for lowering taxes.

Rather, the $2.8 million would have stayed in a fund the county has for such park projects, and $500,000 the state granted to the county for the project would have been returned.

One of the councilmen's amendments would have cut $1.4 million in funding for the Board of Education from the budget — about 4% of the $35 million increase in funding that Gardner proposed.

Follow Jack Hogan on Twitter: @jckhogan