Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich (D) will be amending his proposed county operating budget for fiscal year 2026 after his staff “inadvertently underfunded the amount necessary to fully fund the Parks Department’s employee contract obligations” by $1 million, according to a letter he sent Tuesday to County Council President Kate Stewart (D-Dist. 4).
The letter listed amendments that Elrich plans to submit to the council as it considers his recommended $7.65 billion county operating budget plan for the upcoming fiscal year, which he released on March 14. The council is expected to adopt a final budget in mid-May for fiscal year 2026, which begins July 1.
“I intend to submit an amendment to increase the Parks Department’s budget by approximately $1 million to correct this error,” Elrich wrote.
The letter comes after Montgomery Parks Director Miti Figueredo asked the council last month to increase funding for the parks department for the coming fiscal year, saying that Elrich underfunded the department’s spending plan.
Elrich’s budget “has slashed” the parks department’s proposed operating budget for the coming fiscal year, “failing to fund essential services or cover the cost of paying Montgomery Parks’ approximately 870 career employees,” Figueredo wrote in a March 21 letter to Stewart. “This budget underfunds employee compensation and entirely fails to fund increases necessary to cover Major Known Commitments like maintenance for new parks, debt service, and inflationary increases.”
Figueredo said at the time that Elrich’s proposal for parks was $1 million short of covering staff compensation and $3.1 million below what’s needed to maintain the existing level of services.
At the time, Elrich said Figueredo was “overblowing” what happened with her department’s budget proposal.
“We didn’t make any cuts to their budget and their effort to try to portray it that way is false. They asked for additional money. We gave them money for the salaries and other needs,” Elrich said during a virtual press briefing on March 26. “We didn’t give them everything they wanted. A lot of people didn’t get everything they wanted.”
When asked by Bethesda Today during a virtual press briefing Wednesday about his change in tune, Elrich said, “Somebody made a mistake.” He said funding was supposed to be removed only from the parks department’s capital budget, not its operating budget.
“We were looking at, you know, a million here and a million there, but that was not intended,” Elrich said.
Figueredo told Bethesda Today in an email Wednesday that the $1 million increase would not fix the spending deficit created by Elrich’s reductions to the parks department’s budget proposal.
“The $1 [million] amendment would cover compensation but would not be enough to cover our other existing commitments like inflationary and contractual increases, increased utility costs, and debt service on equipment,” Figueredo wrote. “That would require restoration of about another $2.1 [million]. That $2.1 [million] is already reduced by some savings of about $1.5 [million] that we were able to make to reduce the amount of funding the Council needs to try to find for us.”
During public hearings on the proposed county operating budget earlier this month, several community members urged the council to increase funding for the parks department.
“Every year … the county executive gives an operating budget that … would not cover expenses,” former Planning Board Chair Jeffrey Zyontz said. “It’s indefensible.”
Last month, Stewart told Bethesda Today that Elrich has “consistently underfunded the parks” in his budget proposals. After receiving Tuesday’s letter, she said she was “glad” Elrich was acknowledging that his team had made a funding error.
“It was a huge mistake that caused a great deal of undue stress among employees of the parks department,” Stewart told Bethesda Today on Wednesday. “What we were looking at was closing of parks and not even doing the appropriate pay increases.”
