Our charter gives the County Executive strong powers; the Executive submits the budget to the Council, which can only delete from the proposal. The County Council does, however, have an important responsibility that occurs several months before the submittal of the budget proposal.
In 1990, the County Council passed a
spending affordability law to ensure that increases in spending do not exceed
the county’s rate of economic growth. The
law mandates that the County Council’s Spending Affordability Committee make a
recommendation each Fiscal Year on spending and debt guidelines.
I have been honored to serve on the Spending
Affordability Committee for both of my years on the County Council. The other two County Council members are Tom
Quirk, who chairs the SAC, and Vicki Almond, chair of the full Council. There are also two members from the private
sector. An Economic Advisory Committee assists
with the assessment of private sector growth.
Our first meeting was last week. The Economic Advisory Committee noted some positive signs that that the economy is
slowly improving. Economic growth in the
housing and labor markets improved during the later months of 2011; December was the best month for home sales
since 2007. Still, personal income in
Baltimore County is expected to have grown only between 4 percent and 4.5 percent this Fiscal
Year, and while other counties have
higher unemployment rates, there are still many residents who are out of work.
Add to this the likelihood of cuts from
the federal and state governments, and the prospect of teacher pension costs shifting to the counties, and it’s clear that this Spending
Affordability Committee must adopt a conservative budget threshold. I look forward to working with my colleagues and the County Executive to ensure we maintain a fiscally disciplined approach.
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