(5/2019) Like a Puzzle, Budget Pieces Work Together to Deliver a High-Quality of Life

The County's budget is like a jigsaw puzzle, with many pieces working together to create a high quality of life. On April 15th, I unveiled my proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2020. The budget is lean, sensible, balanced, and fiscally responsible, and it delivers results, including outstanding schools, safe communities, efficient services and a high quality of life. Income and property tax rates remain unchanged.

The budget continues my strong commitment to public education, with an additional $12.2 million for Frederick County Public Schools to ensure the best teachers in the classroom and high-achieving student outcomes. There is also additional funding for Frederick Community College to help keep tuition affordable.

In the coming year, you will see the opening of two new parks – Phase 2 of Utica District Park later this year and Othello Regional Park in the southwestern part of the county next spring – as well as the Myersville Branch Library. We are also constructing Urbana Elementary School, and addition to Oakdale Middle School and a new elementary school in the Lake Linganore area, along with numerous road and bridge projects. New initiatives for the upcoming budget year include:

• Composting. The budget supports a composting demonstration project to incentivize the private sector to offer composting, and to support composting within our schools.
• Branding. The next step for our Growth Opportunities strategy is to develop a branding and marketing plan, which will support emerging businesses and help to retain existing employers.
• Affordable Housing. I will be introducing legislation to the County Council to dedicate a portion of existing recordation tax revenues to affordable housing. Last year I set aside funds from these revenues for the Housing Initiative Fund. This legislation would codify the funding commitment.

The new fiscal year begins July 1. The County Council held a public hearing on the proposed budget on April 30. They will meet with division directors about their budgets May 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in Winchester Hall beginning at 9 a.m. each day. Those discussions will be televised live on FCG TV. If you want to see the detailed numbers in the proposed budget, you can find them online at www.FrederickCountyMD.gov/Budget.

I am proud that Frederick County lives within our means while providing outstanding services. Many of our surrounding counties are raising taxes, and we are able to avoid this through good management.

Life is good in Frederick County! Our quality of life is comprised of a wide variety of puzzle pieces including outstanding schools, safe communities, exceptional employees, beautiful parks and libraries, a top-notch health department, excellent roads, water and sewer, and citizen services. Our economy is vibrant and Frederick County is a great place to do business. There is plenty of good news to share! The future of Frederick County is bright.

Keeping Agriculture Viable

Frederick County values our agricultural heritage. We can be proud that our farmers provide food and fiber and are great stewards of our rich farmlands. One of my priorities is to ensure that we leave a legacy of agriculture for future generations. That means we must preserve our best, most productive farms, and help to keep agriculture an economically viable industry.

Agriculture directly accounts for more than $150 million in sales each year in Frederick County. The industry generates an economic impact of nearly $1.5 billion. Keeping agriculture economically viable is a priority of my administration during this second term. And it may be one of our bigger challenges. The past few years have brought a perfect storm of challenges, especially for dairy farmers. The combination of low commodity prices, rising feed costs, international trade issues, and the wettest year on record created real economic hardship. Now is the time to preserve our land and leave a legacy of agriculture to future generations.

With any issue we face, I know that the best ideas come from the people who are directly involved. That’s why earlier this month, we surveyed hundreds of farm owners, operators, and people who work in the agriculture industry in Frederick County. Most of those who responded have been in the industry for more than 30 years and farm more than 100 acres.

Some of the biggest challenges identified by the survey were commodity prices, weather, regulations, labor issues, zoning, and pressure to develop. More than 50 members of our local agriculture industry took a break from their spring planting to discuss the survey results and offer suggestions during the Agriculture Business Viability Roundtable that I hosted on Earth Day. The discussion generated ideas for initiatives, legislation, and other steps that we will consider over the coming months. Stay tuned for details as we put some of these plans into action. My goal is to help keep agriculture a thriving part of Frederick County’s economy for generations to come!

As always, if you have questions or concerns, you can contact me at 301-600-3190 or by email at JGardner@FrederickCountyMD.gov.