Today, for our last meeting of the year, Santa attended our opening and provided some comments! We then had the Invocation and Pledge and the approval of the consent agenda. The Consent Agenda included appointments to boards and commissions (thank you to everyone willing to serve our community!) and a letter of support for Delegate Jerry Clark Clark’s Marine License Bill.
We then adjourned as the Board of Commissioners and reconvened as the Board of Health for a presentation from Dr. Brewster. She said that the county is still in a high rate of transmission and there is concern with the unknowns of Omicron.
Reconvening as the Board of Commissioners, our only Main Agenda item of business was the final report on the County Redistricting Plan and approval of a letter forwarding the plan to the Board of Elections.
Moving into the County Administrator portion of the agenda, our first item of business was review of upcoming meeting agendas. Second we approved the FY2022 Edward J. Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Award for $30,000 for the purchase of the LexiPol/Cordico Shield Law Enforcement Wellness App—no county match required. Third we approved a Sheriff’s Office reclassification request to reclassify a vacant Central Security Room Specialist position to a Court Security Officer—this reclassification will have a yearly cost increase of $5,754. Fourth we approved a letter of support for the expansion of the Mattapany Rural Legacy Area. Fifth we approved the Memorandum of Understanding with the Southern Maryland Agriculture Development Commission (SMADC) for the construction of the Regional Agricultural Center. Sixth we approved Budget Amendments to realign Capital Project funds from FIN22 Capital Reserve (-$1,309,841) and Salt Storage Facility project (-$500,000) to the Regional Agricultural Center (+$1,584,841) and Clements Convenience Center (+$225,000) projects. Seventh we approved a budget amendment to realign county departments personal services budget accounts by $305,607 and moving $272,893 to the Commissioner’s Emergency Reserve due to salary savings. Eighth we authorized the Procurement Officer to award the CAD/RMS Software Replacement to Tyler Technologies estimated at $1,550,000. Our final item of business was approval of Neighborhood Connect Grants—this grant program will use $2,055,479.69 in state funding, $153,000 in County funding, and $306,000 from Atlantic Broadband.
During Commissioner Time I spoke about the MACo Conference that I attended last week. We then entered into Closed Session to discuss Personnel. We will reconvene this afternoon for a Budget Work Session to discuss CIP changes, fund balance use, Homestead percentage and recommendations on use of the Health Premium refund.
UPDATE: At the beginning of our budget work session, we voted unanimously to increase the salary of our Director of Emergency Services to be more in line with the job responsibilities. We then had a productive discussion on multiple different budget factors, including projected growth and revenue expectations. It’s still very early in the budget process, a lot of work still to be done.
Great content! Keep up the good work!