The County Council has concluded its work on the 2010 county budget.

We are all pleased with the process we observed this year to reach what we feel is a very fair and economically sound budget that will help us move forward with confidence. No further cuts in personnel were necessary as in the past few years, but some major decisions were involved that we feel are “landmark” decisions to move our county forward. Carroll Manor has basically been removed from the general fund budget and will operate from revenues received directly from residents or through state programs that subsidize the rates charged. We have been moving in this direction for the last couple of years and now it will become a reality. The Manor will appear in the 2010 commissioners’ budget for Seed Money $50,000 (to appear one year only) and a permanent line item for Indigent Assistance $50,000, with the council responsible for defining the term indigent.

We are extremely pleased to have found the funding to staff a third ambulance for 2010. Other changes that had been made (such as appeared in the Reassessment and Assessor accounts) in the last two budgets were returned to normal procedure. There are other smaller changes to the budget, but after all final adjustments are made, we anticipate the total for the 2010 budget will be very nearly a repeat of the very conservative 2009 general fund budget total of approximately $5.6M. And, we anticipate no problems with submitting that total even though revenues are expected, by year end, to be down by 10-15% due to the recession.

We are proud of the results of our efforts. Beginning in the spring, council members began meeting individually with the various departments, working to become familiar with the operations of each and discussing ways that county government’s day to day operations can be run more economically, even though costs everywhere keep escalating. The council finance committee met sometimes twice a month to assist in gathering information for the full council to use in the decision-making. Every council member expended much time and energy doing their homework in advance of putting together the budget. The final task of putting the numbers to paper was accomplished in less than 10 hours of intense work. However, recognition must also be given to the various departments for their efforts to meet requests to be conservative when preparing and submitting their budgets.

Ann Brown, president Carroll County Council