The big raise that wasn’t
Community College of Baltimore County employees almost had $863 million reasons to be happy about County Executive Jim Smith’s budget.
County Auditor Mary Allen was outlining about $12 million in proposed salary increases during the council’s annual overview of the budget on Tuesday. Most of the raises come as cost of living adjustments for county employees. The lion’s share of that, about $11 million, would go to county teachers.
But college employees, for a few seconds, came out a little ahead with a raise that would have surely broken the budget.
“The college, the cost of their COLA is a little over $800 million, about $863 million,” Allen initially told the council.
But when she correctly totaled the amount of salary increases at about $12 million for fiscal year 2010, Councilman Vince Gardina caught the verbal gaff.
“I just said million?” Allen responded with a chuckle and then corrected herself. “It’s $863,000.”
“They’d be very happy if it was $800 millon.”