Bel Air Town Administrator Jesse Bane plans to introduce his first budget as the town's chief executive during the town commissioners meeting this Monday, a fiscal 2016 budget that he said is balanced and does not include tax increases, but comes with spending cuts.
Bane also plans to address what he called a "severely understaffed" town workforce.
"The budget you're going to get is one that's a balanced budget with no tax increase, but it's one where we've made some deep cuts to be able to do that, not to the extent that it's going to have an adverse impact on the town," he said during a commissioners' work session Tuesday.
Bane also praised department heads for "holding the line on spending."
The current budget covering the 2015 fiscal year is $15.9 million. The real property tax rate is 50 cents per $100 of assessed value, and the personal property tax rate is $1.16 per $100 of value, according to the town website.
The commissioners will take part in four budget work sessions during April. The budget must be adopted before the 2015-2016 fiscal year begins July 1.
Bane gave an "editorial comment" on staffing during the work session.
"I think one of the things that amazed me when I first took this job is the volume of work that the staff do," he said. "We have a very small number of horses that are pulling a very big wagon, and I really don't know how much longer we'll be able to continue pulling the wagon."
He added: "In other words, we're severely understaffed."
Bane praised town staffers for the hard work and extra hours they put into their jobs.
"You're getting a lot of bang for your buck out of your staff here," he noted. "I'm very proud of them, some of them doing jobs of other people because you just pitch in and help when somebody's not here."