Late Wednesday afternoon, the Maryland Board of Public Works approved O'Malley's recommendations for $ 454 million in cuts. The plan included $210 million in cuts for roads, community colleges, heath, and public safety for local counties.
Wicomico stands to lose $ 5.7 million in state aid per the Governor's detailed plan below.
What, in your opinion, should County Executive Rick Pollitt cut to balance the budget?
http://www.governor.maryland.gov/documents/090826LocalAid.pdf
63 comments:
Everything.
Thats a tough one.
Vote this loser out
Well, page 7 identifies those services which the State will cut it's funding. Wicomico Health, Police Aid, Community College, and Highway. Of course Rick can go to those departments and ask their department heads to make the cuts. Or Rick will go to any other department or source of expenses and lessen the cut to those state aided departments and cut from other departments.
I'd whack all funding to all non-profit organizations, then whack all funding to senior citizen programs for starters. No road repairs and begin to part time some of the existing full time non-essential county positions.
Wicomico County thinks things are bad now, wait until next year.
This is most likely equal to the amount Ray Lewis and gang stold from the County.
Does the County have insurance to cover things like this? lol
Rick Pollitt's salary.
His salary, for starters.
Then, he could cut all studies for how new money should be spent, since there won't be any.
That ought to take care of the 5 mil, but if there's any room left, he could cut 50% of upper echelon county employees... probably a lot of fat up there.
Rick Pollitt will make the necessary cuts and then will be voted out of office for doing exactly what needs to be done.
Then watch Wicomico County voters elect as the County's next Executive some numbskull who can't balance her own checkbook let alone a $100M operating budget. Wicomico and Salisbury resident have a history of doing this.
The Seniors deserve better.
How is Wicomico County supposed to have a balanced budget when the state obviously cannot balance theirs. I dont really call it local aid. It is our aid. We paid those taxes. I would rather see it spent here than on some stupid political program created on the other side of the bay to get votes or for lobbyists. FACT: Your Local Tax Dollar is Your Most Visible Tax Dollar. Take the roads for instance. When I buy gas, a portion of it is supposed to be set aside for maintenance of the roads. If OMalley (i didnt vote for him) decides to rob peter to pay paul using that fund, isn't that defeating the purpose of it? Isn't it true that the more you let a road problem go, the more it will cost to fix it later? I guess then we will need another round of obamas "reinvestment" act to fix the problems created by omalleys "deinvestment" act. How can they expect a county who has a balanced budget based on a dollar figure from the state on how much of OUR money they were going to give back, to suddenly be able to find a golden egg when they say.....nah, we changed our mind. You are only getting 10% of it. And whats up with baltimore city only getting a 19% cut when everyone else got 90%. Do you smell POLITICS? To answer the question Joe, Rick will have to cut to balance the budget once again. Lets not lose site of the fact that the monies cut from Health, Police, and Roads are all essential services. There is nothing lavish about any of them. It will simply become an issue of which services can we live without. Everyone wont agree on that because what is important to some, maybe a non-issue to others. I find it sad that all this stimulus money is being wasted on projects that wont even be around when our kids will be paying back all this money. How long does blacktop last? How about some worthwhile bridge projects, or road widening projects to handle larger volumes of traffic in the coming years.
Ray Lewis and gang stole about $500,000. The State is cutting $5,700,000 which is about 11X what Ray Lewis and the gang stole.
6:35 PM
I hope you are referring to Martin Omalley. None of this has anything to do with Rick Pollit, in all seriousness.
Here we go with the same ole shell game again, Kratovil gets us $1.23 million in stimulus and Gov-na O'Money take-ith away $5.7 million.
That's a negitive $4.4 summin', we still get the chitty end of da schtick!
Thanks all you idiots who voted for this a$$.
I predict Pollitt will use this to get a vote from the council to end the revenus cap.
I think god i'm 57 and not 27 or 17 years old. I feel sorry for today's youth who will need to find steady employment over then next 40-50 years.
Young people rreading this blog, take the advise of a 57 year old. Learn to live with in your financial means and never carrie any debt other than your home and 1 car. Be damn satisfied with yourself when hopefully someday you can afford to buy a very small 1,300 sq ft house to raise your family and live out the rest of your life.
Build a toll booth on the path to O.C.
Tim you get the job?
Wait!
In the preceding article posted, Krat is bringing home the bacon to the tune of $1.23 million of stimulus funds.
So we're good!!!!!
Yay!!!
7:03
He'd better.
6:52 who are you referring to when you say "she"? Gail Bartkovich or Stevie Prettyman? lol
6:59, Tim Chaney has it right. The one million we're getting is the 5.7 less shipping and handling charges. That's how it works. Anyone for MORE government employees?
Cut Ray Lewis from doing business in this county. One department that shouldn't be cut is the sheriffs department. Mike Lewis has that department running like a Formula One race car. Plus we need Sheriff Lewis to keep an eye on criminals like that loser Ray Lewis. I could careless about the other departments in this county. Mike Lewis and his crew is worth every penny we pay them. Plus I think the county should slide Joe Albero a little for exposing the shady activities in this county.
dont build the library! dont build a park. simple
The revenue cap is here to stay. Sorry but U just need to get over it.
RC: Pollitt will never ask for the Revenue Cap to be lifted by the County Council. He's on record as being against it, but he's also on record as saying the citizens of the county voted for it, and he has to live with it. He may remind all the supporters of the revenue cap just how damaging that cap, with the corresponding lack of a transfer tax (making us the only county in MD with a cap and without a transfer tax, iirc), has been to the county, but he will not ask the council to repeal it. Seems to me Pollitt and O'Malley have done their best with this economic situation. I certainly don't hear either office holder calling for a tax increase to offset these shortfalls. I've actually been pleasantly surprised how fiscally conservative O'Malley has been in teh last 12 months.
How can anyone answer that question intelligently without have the entire county budget in front of them?
RightCoast is a smart cookie!
Right on the money.
Lets all move to Delaware!
I thinkthat the governor needs to remember the disproportunate burden that ECI has placed on Salisbury/Wicomico and factor that into financial decisions so that we can remain vigilant on law enfrocement and education, as for other non-essential services and positions...pleas cut.
Ricky could cut the salaries of those that make six figures or more, including his own.
Of the 5.7 million...over 4 million is for roads and transportation. Public Works has a separate budget so it will come directly from theirs and not the general budget. There are other organizations, ie..civic center that have their own budget too but they are not affected.
Am sure that the roads were hit the most since they just got a lot of stimulus money.
Awesome ppl we have working for us little people
There will be HELL TO PAY if those Clowns end the Revenue Cap.
They won't have meetings in the evenings, that won`t matter, we`ll take the meetings to them! ! !
The state needs to learn to manage their money better-in some counties,we Marylanders pay more into state taxes than federal,yet the Feds are spitting out all this grant money and the state cant even maintain roadways.
They should NOT cut funding to anything for seniors.They worked hard all their lives and alot of them are struggling as badly as the working poor in this country.
Anyone else support the call for evening council meetings? I'd like to see how the council responds to this.
I just know they will find a way to raise our taxes. The government created this problem by putting us in a global market, and allowing corporations to outsource and insource our jobs. I worked in tech support and lost mine because my company decided to send what was left of the white collar jobs to India. This was after they sent blue collar jobs to Mexico and then China. The government created this mess and now they what us to pay more for the problems that they created! Welcome to the new U.S.A. The new third world country!
Come on guys and gals. This is just another ploy to get all the small political jurisdictions to belly up to the federal hog trough for some "stimulus money". That way DC can control everything right down to the local level. I don't know about everyone else, but I've been stimulated to the extent I'm going to need to wear Depends. My sphincter can't take much more "stimulating"!
1) Refuse education to those children who are here illegally. (sorry but drastic times call for drastic measures) then cut the amount of funding from the BOE put in place to overcome the language barrier issues.
2) Eliminate any and all code enforcement that isn't generated by an actual citizen complaint.- like weeds and grass growing taller than 8 inches in a rural area or unregistered autos in someones yard.
3) Eliminate the unnecessary dead weight like all of those people standing around a county roads project with only one person working - we've all seen them and they know who they are.
4) Eliminate take home vehicles for everyone except those who may be called out for emergencies. If an employee of the county is called to come out for anything other than an emergency - pay them mileage for the use of their personal cars.
5) Stop any more expenditures that support non profits. Sorry - times are tough.
6) Only fund those things that we are currently REQUIRED to provide such as law enforcement and basic education.
7) Implement new legislation that provides for creation of fines for violations of COUNTY traffic violations so that the money from citations goes directly to the county general fund.
8) Set aside one half of all money seized from drug related violations to go to the general fund. The state police are revenue generators for the state, our Sheriff's Office can generate some revenue for the good of the county residents.
9) During the winter, instead of paying a county roads employee overtime to ride with a plow/salt truck driver, put a trustee at the detention center with the driver. Or work with the courts to have those sentenced to community service actually sentenced to work for the county on weekends cutting grass, etc.
10) Cut cable TV to inmates. Eliminate TV altogether. Raise the AC setting to 74 degrees like I do at my house to save TONS of money.
One could go on and on.
30 million dollar library
100 million dollar civic center
comcast bills to go up to support a new multi million dollar media center for Pac 14
Buying land for new parks
Stealing land values from the farmers
This is Pollitts agenda
They will all fold on Gamblin, they dont have a choice. And they think that is one, a choice I mean.
Heres a way to balance the budget: !. Cut back on County Road Employees. Why: because everytime I see a county road employee they are in their county vehicle sleeping. 2. Cut back on several salaries. They are making more money doing nothing than a hard working individual. 3. cut back jobs in which no work is going on. For example, research studies, or echelon work. 4. Cut back on take home vehicles. 5. Sell some county property. and that fixes it
take home vehicles, start school year after labor day and end friday before memorial-give the teachers less whatever days (my teaching friends call them waste of time days with the same info given over and over), let the inmates cut grass, clean office buildings,etc. or let the people on state assistance work to earn what they are getting for free. This would be a great start.
Toll Booth on the road to OC is a great idea, but then again if the roads are not repaired we won't have any for them to get to OC on.
duck around you must have not been listening to Rick Pollitt for the past three years. All he has talked about is getting rid of the cap. It's his dream to have it gone and a liberal county council to raise taxes. We should be thankful that we have Prettyman,Hollaway and Barkovich on the council, if not some of the things Pollitt has done or let happen we would never had known about. All you have to do is talk to some of the people in Fruitland and you will see were he wants to take Wicomico county
I will assure you that they are trying to implement vendor paid speed cameras right now.
Get rid of the code enforcement officer that sits on his butt and uses goggle earth to look in peoples back yards and woods and then lies and said he has had complaints
Everyone, please remember why the State is so far in the hole. Real estate sales,transfer taxes, etc. are all at historic lows. Property values (read property tax revenues) are in the same situation. Retail sales tax revenues are way below projections. Remember, O'Malley raised sales taxes by 20% and nowhere in history did revenues increase when tax rates were raised. Revenues decrease, people don't buy as much or in the case of the Eastern Shore, we go to Delaware for big ticket items.The Governor can do the following; decrease full-time salary and benefits for part-time legislators,(remember they are only in session 90 days), reduce or eliminate take-home vehicles for all state personnel (imagine the boom in car sales and gas tax revenues if these freeloaders had to buy their own cars and gas),finally cap the top State salaries @ $90,000/year. I am tired of hearing how we must pay these people wages comparable to private industry. Screw 'em if they don't like it, let them find a job in the private sector and don't let the door hit them in the a$$ on the way out!!
OK all you County Executive want-a-bees here is a link to the Wicomico County 2010 Operating Budget.
http://www.wicomicocounty.org/finance/FY%202010%20Adopted%20Budget.pdf
O'Malley said local education is off limits so you can't cut anything from the WCBOE (which BTW equals about 53% of the overall County expenditures of $124M. So you've got to cut $5.7M from the remaining $58M. If Wicomico County spends an average of $5M per month and we're already 2 months into the current fiscal year, this leaves a remaining opeating budget of $48M. So Rick will need to cut the remaining Wicomico County services by 12%.
Well, you idiots wanted a revenue cap. And you want uncontrolled growth. You get what you pay for.
Wicomico County is one big Cluster Bump, They buy land for a Park that we can't afford, grass on Nanticoke Road is out of control, the collector road to Naylor Mill Road will likely never get done. Crash and Burn Wicomico County!
Can't wait for the next election, let's see who the Libs vote in next time. Wake Up Our Home is going to the Dogs at break neck speed.
kn
All this for starters:
Gone - Community Promontions $42,000
Gone - Protection of Animals $326,633
Gone - Weed Control $3,000
Gone - Mosquito Control $156,735
Gone - Gypsy Moth Control $3,000
Closed - Public Library $1,648,477 (just give it to the City of Salisbury and move them out of the GOB)
Gone - Tri-County/Shore Transit $424,435
Gone - Community Access Channel $131,000
Closed - Teen Adult Center $61,363
Gone - Maintenance of Aged in Community $106,035
Gone - Commission on Aging $500
Closed - Life Crisis Center $15,000
Total cuts/elimination in County services = $2,918,676. Now we need someone else to find an additional $2.6M in cuts/elimination in County service to equal O'Malley's cuts of $5.7M
Get rid of Gary Mackes, Ray Maccicci, and 1/2 of the administrative burden, I mean staff, at the Board of Ed. While at the board of ed, return the leases on vehicles that employees get as a perk there. By my guess, this saves around $750000.
No new hires within the county. As older, higher paid members leave, that drops a lot of salary.
2 days per month furlough on everybody who is left. It's not that bad, guys.
Take 1/2 the money from seizures, and put it in the general fund.
Does the county own the landfill? If so, raise the fees. Do this for any service that doesn't pay for itself somehow.
Let managers manage:
First, tell every department they have to drop 10% out of their budget. If they fail, fire them.
If the manager returns more than 10% (or whatever the target is), give them a bonus for doing a good job!
Stop giving so much money to places that waste it. If you can pay for people to, let's say, go on a charter fishing trip, or pay millions for a cranberry bog, they are ripe for very deep cuts.
There's got to be some way to scam money out of the feds for road repair. think of this - how many times has the bypass been paved, but business 13 hasn't been touched in a REALLY long time. It's not like the feds not to maintain their roads. Where did the money go?
All houses in the county that are rentals must be registered. Charge a small fee (something reasonable to cover the cost of monitoring compliance).
Any houses in the county that do not supply a decent standard of living, fine the h*ll out of those greedy slumloards.
Help small business...I just bid some work for the city and they used us for a specification only.
Then sent the bid out for re bid and let the other contractors use cheaper systems that were half the spec and price so how do they need more MONEY?????
Ok friends, I think I have found the answer. No problem Rick, close the County services mentioned above totaling $2,918,676 and cut the following.
Cut - Wicomico Health Department $510,125 (as proposed by O'Malley)
Cut - WOR-WIC $220,428 (as proposed by O'Malley)
Cut - Wicomico County Roads $1,869,447 ($4,677,143 cut proposed by O'Malley)
There's your final cut of $2,600,000 needed to be added to the $2,900,000 found in the above post for a total of $5,700,000. This way Rick Pollitt will not need to cut any operating funds from the Wicomico County Sheriff Department. And if you want to cut a little more. All Wicomico County employee take 4 day's furlough will add an additional $300,000 in cuts.
Can any of you County Executive want-a-bees do better?
What I did not see: All maryland politicians should have 10 furlough days where they "work" and are not paid and additionally, all state politicians should take a 20% salary cut.
Why not take the bay bridge toll to $5.00, the tourists will still keep on coming over.
O'Malley needs to be voted OUT, this is at least the 6 or 7th budget cut, he is not fiscally capable of running a state, go back to Baltimore.
MD state lottery should fund the elderly (health depts) instead of the stadium authority (if that's were it still goes).
Amazing the level of ignorance you discover as you read through these comments
Wicomico isn't the only ones hurt by this. The cuts annouced say about 200 employees would love their jobs. About 100 of those came from closing the Mental Health Hopsital in Chestertown. These employees were told on Tuesday afternoon that they would all be out of jobs by March 1, 2010. The only reason they were told then is because they said the Governor was going to annouce it that evening and they didn't want the employees to hear it on the news. Many, many people will be adversely affected by this round of budget cuts. Strap yourself in and hold on tight, the ride is just beginning.
11:47 I too am aware of the closing and can only hope the patients are sent to Annapolis instead of hanging out in OC and the dsiplaced workers find better jobs locally.
JM
"Heres a way to balance the budget: !. Cut back on County Road Employees. Why: because everytime I see a county road employee they are in their county vehicle sleeping"
HA HA HA THATS SOOO FUNNY
That line is getting so worn out. Okay, if you see this so often, why don't you get a vehicle number (There is one on every vehicle) description, and the time of the day, get on your phone and call the Roads Division. Until then, you are just a liar makin' stuff up.
5:54 and 11:39 must be smokin' something. Or else they are just dumb as a meat axe.
Right Coast Said:
I will assure you that they are trying to implement vendor paid speed cameras right now.
I hope they do. There are too many people out there that think they can drive however they want, and too few officers to be runnin' radar all the time. That sounds like a win win. More revenue and less moron speeders. And btw, how can you assure me of that fact. I can assure you it isn't in the works.
10:07 AM Said
"Amazing the level of ignorance you discover as you read through these comments"
Well spoken. I wonder how half these people can manage their own lives let alone try and play Executive.
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