SNOW HILL – A decision to fund pay increases for county employees highlighted the Worcester County Commissioners’ budget work session this week.
The commissioners agreed to leave funding in the budget to give county employees a step increase at the start of the fiscal year and another in January.
“We promised last year we’d take care of them this year …” Commissioner Joe Mitrecic said. “They’re further behind today than they were four years ago. These are the people that make this county run.”
After numerous cuts were made to proposed expenditures by the commissioners, balancing the FY2017 budget came down to getting rid of a $221,000 shortfall on Tuesday.
“We’ve cut every magazine and pencil we can cut,” Mitrecic said.
To eliminate the deficit, the commissioners were forced to decide between using some of the county’s $16.7 million in budget stabilization funds to purchase two new dump trucks and eliminating the January step increase. Mitrecic and Commissioner Bud Church advocated for leaving the January step increase in the budget.
“Our employees have sacrificed with very few, if any, complaints,” Church said.
Worcester County employees received no pay increases of any kind — neither step nor COLA — from FY2009 to FY2012. Between FY2013 and FY2015, they received modest increases. They were given no raises in the current year’s budget.
Commissioner Jim Bunting said he agreed that the county’s employees had made sacrifices in recent years but said he might have made other adjustments to the budget if he’d known two increases were being provided.
In the end, Bunting was the lone commissioner to vote against using budget stabilization funds to buy the two dump trucks. Commissioner Ted Elder abstained from the vote.
“I can’t vote on spending more than you’ve got,” he said.
The commissioners made numerous other cuts to the proposed budget Tuesday before agreeing to fund the pay increases. Social service organizations were the focus of most of those. The commissioners agreed that though many of the organizations sought an increase in funding, they would receive the same amount of money they were granted in the current fiscal year. Atlantic General Hospital’s $100,000 request was adjusted to $75,000. The Cricket Center’s $20,000 request was dropped to $10,000. The Samaritan Shelter’s grant request was knocked from $30,000 to $20,000. A new request for $5,000 from the Snow Hill Ecumenical Food Pantry was removed from the budget entirely. A new request from the Worcester County Humane Society was also taken out of the budget.
Slight exceptions were made for Diakonia and the Maryland Food Bank. The food bank, which received $900 last year, had requested $15,000 this year. The commissioners agreed to give the organization $1,500.
Diakonia, to which the county contributed $42,000 last year, was given $45,000. The group had requested $55,000.
“Diakonia is planning a major expansion,” Church said. “They’re going to need these funds to go along with that.”
The commissioners struggled with a request from the Delmarva Discovery Center. The Pocomoke museum asked for $50,000 in the coming year, in spite of the fact that the commissioners agreed that last year’s $50,000 grant would be their final contribution.
“Last year we said this is it,” Commissioner Chip Bertino said.
Commissioner Merrill Lockfaw said the Delmarva Discovery Center’s new director, Stacey Weisner, was doing a remarkable job.
“She feels confident next year they’ll be self-sufficient,” he said.
Lockfaw suggested granting her funding request this year in an effort to support the southern end of the county.
Elder suggested a compromise of providing some funding this year and none next year. Church also proposed a compromise.
Like Lockfaw, Commissioner Diana Purnell stressed the need to invest in the southern end of Worcester County.
“Everything doesn’t happen in Berlin and Ocean City,” she said. “We have a major thoroughfare down there. We bring people into the county … Why are we cutting off our nose to spite our face?”
Bertino said non-profits should be accustomed to raising their own funds.
“What they do down there is wonderful but I don’t believe the county taxpayers ought to be funding this forever,” he said. “At some point we have to do what’s difficult.”
Mitrecic said he thought a cut in funding this year would eliminate the organization’s chances of being self-sufficient next year.
The commissioners voted 4-3, with Elder, Bertino and Bunting opposed, to grant the Discovery Center’s $45,000 funding request.
The FY 2017 budget is scheduled for adoption June 7.
