I received this email a couple of minutes ago from a concerned citizen. This explains a lot of the issues that citizens have with Mr. Craig, the County Executive. More information about the Sheriff's Dept can be found here: http://www.daggerpress.com/2009/05/14/a-revolting-turnout-county-fears-budget-protestors-enlists-sheriffs-help/
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I hope that the report of Harford County Deputy Sheriffs showing up in uniform at the County Council meeting is an unfounded rumor. Participation in such a manner was and still is used by totalitarian governments around the world to intimidate citizens and stifle free speech. If any resident of Harford County, be he or she a public employee or not, chooses to respectfully exercise their First Amendment right to Free Speech at the County Council meeting, they should have the opportunity to do so without fear of recrimination.
The suggestion that somehow the County Executive reduced the budget and saved 75 million dollars deserves some scrutiny. Savings implies that somehow there was real money available, and it was not spent. It may be closer to reality to state that if the County Executive had 75 million dollars more to spend, the budget would have been much larger. The lack of the 75 million dollars caused the budget reduction, there were no savings. Suggestions that real services will be cut if Property Taxes are cut or the Constant Yield Rate is adopted, is an appeal to fear, and deserves scrutiny as well. The County Executive could well choose to cut projects in Capital Improvements budget, not in the Operations budget. Selective and well thought out cuts in either might not affect real services, and could in fact be beneficial in the long run.
The financial circumstances, and resultant train wreck, for the 2010 budget were established in the 2009, and it will only get worse if the 2010 budget is passed as it is currently constructed. The pay increase for County Employees last year, which may be deserved, resulted in higher operating costs in the 2010 budget. In order to balance the budget for 2010, the County Executive required a 5 day furlough for certain County Employees. The 2010 Capital budget has a significant number of expensive multiyear projects, starting in 2010. If these projects are funded in 2010 they will last for at least two years. With the current economy it is unreasonable to believe that revenues will increase beyond 2010 estimates. The multiyear contracts , higher operating costs, and reduced revenues would leave the County Executive with a choice of greater reductions in the operating budget or terminating contracts. Reductions in the operating budget would result in longer furloughs, or layoffs. Terminating multiyear contracts would result in penalties, which would also impact the operating budget causing furloughs and layoffs.
A reasonable person constructing a budget does so with known revenues. If a windfall occurs and revenues increase they can either be saved use, or spent. The Increase in revenue resulting from increased Property Assessments and the 9 percent tax cap in Harford County are a windfall which the County Executive has chosen to spend, and by so doing has raised property taxes. He could have chosen to return the windfall to the property owners by lowering their taxes. In hard economic times it would be wiser to save windfalls. If there are not real savings this year the financial future of Harford County could be much worse in future years.
