My first county budget, in the long ago year of 2019 was $603 million dollars. Just these few years later, the overall budget for fiscal year 2022 is $717 million. This represents an increase in spending of almost 19% since 2019. This type of growth is not sustainable. Frederick County is growing, yes and things get more expensive over time, yes. But the population is growing at a rate of maybe 1 or 2 percent per year. A 19% increase over the past 3 fiscal years is growth well above and beyond an acceptable range. Frederick County’s budget is growing by 7.7% this year alone, not counting an additional $50 million in Coronavirus relief which will be added to the bottom line budget over the year. Needless to say it is concerning to me how fast Frederick County government is growing above and beyond even county population growth.

I have annually made attempts to reduce the rate of growth in the County government. For example, this may help put the increases in context. This fiscal year’s budget, in the midst of a pandemic, included 68 additional county government positions that were not in the budget last year. I proposed a modest amendment to selectively reduce the number of new positions by 11, and slow the rate of adding new employees, meaning only 57 new employees would have been added. Unfortunately, this budget amendment was not adopted.

Council Member McKay and I introduced several additional amendments to reduce the rate of growth in the county budget. We proposed no real dollar cuts, meaning that everything we proposed was merely a reduction in the amount of increase that a Department would be receiving. Among other reductions in growth, we proposed reducing the amount of money for county job advertising, reducing the increase of county vehicles, slightly reducing the increase in pay for county employees, and reducing consultants and studies. Each one was defeated. Ultimately this $717 million budget was passed, without a single dollar being cut, with only myself voting against.

Frederick County homeowners and business owners are going to be in for an unpleasant surprise in the coming years when their homes are reassessed and the property tax is collected. Anyone who has been paying attention to real estate values lately has seen the skyrocketing prices for land and houses. When the annual property tax bill comes due, more money will be coming out of the pockets of the homeowners and passed over to the county. We are overdue for some tax relief for our residents.

There is a philosophical difference at work here. The County Executive spends every dollar that comes in, no matter what that revenue increase may be. Some years that is a $20 million revenue increase. Some years (as in this year) it is substantially more (like at least $52 million). I strongly believe in budgeting to what the county absolutely needs and growing the county much more slowly rather than spending every dollar that the county collects.

I will continue to work to look out for the taxpayers first and slow the rate of growth of the budget in Frederick County.