Today was our first commissioner meeting of 2023! We started off the morning with the Invocation and Pledge followed by the approval of the Consent Agenda. We then presented commendations to Ted Weiner and John Pleisse in recognition of their retirements—thank you for your service to our county!
Next we heard updates from our County Attorney’s office on legislation. We voted to support legislation at the request of the State’s Attorney’s Office to transfer employees of the Child Support Unit to the Child Support Administration of the Department of Social Services. I requested that our staff track SB103, a bill introduced by Senator Arthur Ellis that would provide additional income tax credit to homeowners who purchase rooftop solar panels.
Moving into County Administrator time, our first item of business was review of upcoming meeting agendas—there will be no Commissioner meeting next week due to the Martin Luther King Day holiday. Second we approved a budget amendment for the Board of Education to realign $1,724,000 of fund balance to CIP projects, Maintenance, and Materials of Instruction. The CIP Projects include the Great Mills High School Press Box, playground upgrades, and the Chopticon High School Gym Floor and Bleachers. Third we approved a $196,761 budget amendment for the Board of Education for additional funding from the School Safety Grant. Fourth we approved a letter and report to the Maryland Department of Planning for the recertification of the county’s Maryland Agriculture Land Preservation Foundation program—this is a procedural step that must be completed every five years. Recertification will allow the county to retain 75% of agriculture transfer tax funds for land preservation and without certification the county would retain 33% of the agricultural transfer tax funds. Our last item of business for this morning was approval of the employment contract with Jason P Finkelstein as the Jurisdictional Medical Director for St. Mary’s County—welcome to the team!
During Commissioner Time I spoke about the MACo Conference, upcoming MLK Day events, and a prayer service for Lakelyn Draheim, and young girl in our community with a brain tumor. If you want more information on the community gathering to support her family, check out this Facebook page: https://fb.me/e/33sNtnoTK .
We then entered into the largest Closed Session since I’ve been in office to discuss Litigation, multiple Real Property issues, and multiple Personnel issues.
This afternoon we will reconvene for a Budget Work Session to discuss Operating Budget revenues, Use of Unassigned Fund Balance, Homestead Tax Credit Percentage and HR Recommendations on the use of Health Premium refund.
