Wicomico County budget disputes continue with press release from County Executive
WICOMICO COUNTY – Final changes are being made to Wicomico County’s budget, but the County Council and the Office of the Executive are still not seeing eye-to-eye.
The two sides have publicly disagreed on several points, with the council making some key changes to the executive’s proposed budget. As it stands, the $205 million budget is currently the largest in the county’s history–representing roughly a 5-percent increase over last year.
Monday morning, The Office of the County Executive sent out a press release criticizing the Council’s handling of the budget. County Executive Julie Giordano feels that the changes made do not represent her priorities: “It’s a really high budget with cuts made to capital projects, public safety, and employee raises. It’s just frustrating.”
A major point of contention has been the county’s funding of the Salisbury Fire Department. Council President John Cannon thinks that they have done enough to adequately fund the department, with the council proposing $1.6 million instead of the executive’s $2 million. “The council is just trying to do what it thinks is in the best interest of the public. We gave the City of Salisbury $600,000 more than we did last year, that’s a 60% increase,” said Cannon.
Initially the council proposed a $1.4 million budget for the fire department, but they agreed to increase it by $200,000, leaving the final number $400,000 short of what the executive had previously negotiated with the city.
The council’s concession wasn’t enough for Giordano, who said, “While I think their intentions were good, I almost think it was a smack in the face, because they admitted that the cut was inappropriate, but [only gave] a certain amount back.”
Giordano has publicly called the move “political posturing,” saying the council wants to drive a wedge between local volunteer companies and career firefighters.
Cannon disagreed, saying that this is all part of the process: “We recognize their concerns and want to continue to work with them. It’s got nothing to do with posturing, it’s called negotiating.” Cannon also took issue with the language Giordano has used to characterize the county’s budget decisions, saying, “I don’t see where you can say that there cuts to public safety. We just gave $600,000 more to the City of Salisbury. We gave $825,000 more to the [volunteer] fire companies, and we gave increases to the Sheriff’s Department. There have been no ‘cuts’ per say. Everything we’ve done this year have been increases, it depends on how you wanna frame it.”
Giordano said that after the council approved the additional $200,000, Mayor Randy Taylor penned a letter acknowledging the increase, but stating that it still wasn’t enough.
The council’s version of the budget also took out funding for expansion of the Corrections Department. The proposed expansion would be needed to meet state requirements. Cannon said the council decided to postpone it until next year to allow additional time for review. According to Cannon, the expansion last year had been projected at $1.8 million for FY 2025, but this year’s projections were $2.7 million for both 2025 and 2026, adding up to a total of $5.4 million.
