The Montgomery County Council Thursday morning unanimously approved its $5.8 billion budget for fiscal year ‘20. The budget does not raise taxes and includes an additional $16 million in reconciliation items from the budget County Executive Marc Elrich proposed on March 15.
The council spent two months holding public hearings on Elrich’s budget and drafting a list of items they had hoped to add. The original list included $34 million in line items, but last week the council pared down the list to $16 million.
The council added $3 million to the Montgomery College budget during the reconciliation process, fully meeting the college’s request of $313 million. Elrich had originally budgeted $310 million, noting that he had increased per-pupil spending due to decreased enrollment.
The council also approved an additional more than $1 million to expand Ride On’s Kids Ride Free program to students under 18 to all bus service hours, $1.8 million in funding for programs for the developmentally disabled and $400,000 for climate change initiatives.
The additional funding will be paid for with $10 million that Elrich left for the council to use at its discretion, and an additional $6 million in savings that that the council found by decreasing the budget for snow removal, and by renegotiating a contract with the county’s main government union. The council rejected the original union contract, which would have given raises of up to 9.4% for 1,200 employees, and instead approved pay increases of between 6% and 7%.
Separately, the council added $16 million to Montgomery County Public Schools’ (MCPS) budget, in anticipation of forthcoming aid from the state. Elrich had received criticism for not fully meeting MCPS’ request for $2.66 billion. The council’s additions increase the school budget to $2.68 billion.
“I’m excited about this budget. It maintains all our core services. It fully funds our request from the school system, the libraries and our transportation department. It doesn’t raise taxes while maintaining our triple-A bond rating,” said council member Tom Hucker.
The pledge not to raise taxes was one Elrich made last year during his county executive campaign. During a news conference Wednesday, Council President Nancy Navarro said the council was able to accomplish the goal through its reconciliation process. She said she “doesn’t have a crystal ball,” when asked whether the council will be able to avoid raising taxes in the future.
The last tax hike came in 2016 when the council approved a $8.7% increase in the property tax rate that was proposed by former County Executive Isiah Leggett.
“We had a unique challenge in 2016 with our school system and a proposal from the county executive to raise property taxes. This council decided that money should go specifically to reducing class sizes,” Navarro said.
In a news release, Elrich said he was pleased the council’s budget endorsed 99.7% of his original proposal.
“This budget addresses our most pressing needs in a fiscally responsible manner despite lower-than-predicted revenues. The budget starts to correct chronic understaffing in a number of departments that has driven excessive overtime and that contributes to the need for perpetual mid-year savings plans,” he wrote.
Elrich added that he was disappointed that the council did not fully fund the county union contract.
“I wanted to honor the commitment that the prior administration made to some of our longest serving employees by fully restoring a service increment increase that had been cut in 2011. As only one in ten County employees still qualify for this increase, I believed then and I still believe that it was completely affordable,” he wrote.
The new budget takes effect July 1 at the beginning of the fiscal year.
Dan Schere can be reached at Daniel.schere@moco360.media
