Harford County and the Aberdeen’s respective councils passed their proposed 2021 budgets with few, if any, changes Tuesday.
In a specially-scheduled session of the Aberdeen City Council, the budget passed unanimously and will take effect on July 1 — the start of fiscal year 2021. Its originally scheduled meeting fell on Memorial Day, so the council held the vote on the budget Tuesday.
Mayor Patrick McGrady said the budget has not been amended since it was introduced on April 27. The original draft of the budget was tinkered with as the coronavirus pandemic spread through Maryland, rippling through local governments balance-sheets, before it was introduced to the council.
Aberdeen’s total adopted budget is about $3 million less than last year’s, which is unusual as budgets go, McGrady said. The municipality had to adopt 5% increases to its water and sewer rates, too, to offset the costs of the county’s rate increases, according to the budget document. It also had to draw on its savings to keep up with expenses.
The city will keep its tax rates flat, though it will collect more in property taxes as a result of increasing property assessment valuations, new apartments opening up and annexations to the city. It elected to not adhere to the constant yield tax rate, a calculation made by the state’s department of assessments and taxation that shows localities the rate necessary to maintain the previous year’s tax revenue in the coming year.
If the pandemic continues into the future, the city will need to increase revenues or cut spending, McGrady said.
“We have chosen to collect more revenue from the real property tax, and we are still borrowing from the rainy day fund… because of this situation,” McGrady said. “It is not sustainable to borrow from the rainy day fund forever.”
The Harford County Council, too, unanimously passed the county’s budget with slight changes. County Executive Barry Glassman’s budget mostly carried, with multiple county residents and representatives from local organizations urgingat prior public hearings that the seven-member body to adopt it as it stood.
Council president Patrick Vincenti said the only remaining step is for Glassman to sign the budget.
Glassman’s proposed $948 million budget fully funded the board of education’s operating budget — an approximately $20.5 million increase to school funding.
The few changes to the document, Vincenti explained, were made to balance the budget, though two amendments to fund the Aberdeen Activity Center were withdrawn. Council attorney Charles Kearney explained that one of the two could not, under the county charter, move money in the budget for capital purposes.
Under the proposed budget, all general county employees would be eligible for a merit-based $2,000 bonus and 2% wage increase to adjust for costs of living and help those on the lower end of the county’s pay scale.
The county’s budget does not change the tax rate, but it also does not adopt the constant yield tax rate.
Glassman said he is reserving the right to modify the budget as conditions in the county change in response to the coronavirus. Vincenti said the county administration will be monitoring revenue as it comes in.