Raises for county employees?
County Executive Jim Smith will be watching the County Council’s Spending Affordability Committee closely tomorrow as he prepares his budget for the coming year.
Of particular interest will be the committee’s final recommendations on how much the county budget can grow. That number likely will determine whether or not county employees will receive raises.
“It would be wonderful to reward our employees,” said Don Mohler, a spokesman for Smith.
Smith has already told his department heads that the next budget year likely will be a maintenance budget and “not a year for new projects and initiatives.”
Mohler acknowledged this will be “A difficult year” but said raises for county employees are not out of the question.
“Our ability to be flexible depends on what the Spending Affordability Committee does,” Mohler said. “We will not submit a budget that exceeds spending affordability.”
Baltimore County has fared pretty well despite the sagging economy and is expected to post a $15 million budget surplus.
So far, the county has not had to resort to the layoffs and furloughs that have become necessary in other local jurisdictions and in state government.
Smith, as with previous county executives, has steadfastly refused to use budget surpluses to pay for ongoing expenses such as raises. Instead, the money is often used to pay for one-time expenses such as parks and school construction.
Smith promised in October that county employees were safe from layoffs this year and next. He said then that he remained optimistic about preserving the jobs of county employees in 2011 but hinted that the possibility did concern him especially if the state cannot get its own financial affairs in order and starts passing on costs of programs to local jurisdictions.
Political pressure is mounting in the county to provide raises for county employees in the budget Smith will present to the council in April. Last year, Smith, citing gloomy economic forecasts, did not provide cost-0f-of living raises for county employees and school teachers.
Teachers responded by marching around the Old Courthouse in protest.
But the school board is asking for teacher raises this year, something it didn’t do last year at Smith’s request.
The increases may be politically hard to ignore this year.
The budget for fiscal year 2010, which begins July 1, represents the last for which Smith will serve as county executive for the full year. He will have a large hand in preparing the Fiscal Year 2011 budget but will be out of office by Dec. 2010 thus leaving the rest to his successor.
“I think everybody realizes this year is going to be difficult,” said Council Chairman Joseph Bartenfelder, a Democrat who had already announced his intention to run for county executive in 2010.
Bartenfelder said the state budget introduced last week by Gov. Martin O’Malley, which contained nearly 700 employee layoffs, is an indication of tougher times to come.
“It wasn’t pretty,” Bartenfelder said.
“All of that is going to come into play” with the county’s budget, he said.
Raises represent ongoing annual expenses and could put council members who hope to be the next county executive in a precarious position. They may have to choose between the rock that is angering labor unions and county employees who are anxious for a raise and the hard place represented by the possibility of having to layoff county employees to balance the county’s books in 2011.