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Saturday, June 16, 2018

A Viewer Writes: Marc Kilmer you will not get my vote

Look at the things they cut. Then gave 500k to the schools. What is Station 13 sinking fund?

Marc Kilmer, Wicomico County Council

Yesterday the council passed a budget for the next fiscal year. It was $411,197 under what had been initially proposed by the executive. We spent many hours in work sessions determining cuts and some recommendations for increases. The council worked very well together to find consensus on these budget changes. The executive and his staff also deserves a lot of praise for the information they provided and for their cooperation during this process.

Here is the list of the cuts we made and the recommendations we gave to the executive for new spending:
Executive's office -- $25,120 cut for a public information officer and $4,200 cut for promotional billboards
Wor-Wic -- $212,370 cut to keep Wicomico in line with Worcester County's appropriation; Wor-Wic is still eceiving an increase in spending over last year's level
Airport -- $100,000 cut in general revenue going to pay for day-to-day airport operations
Contingency -- $9,877 cut
Station 13 sinking fund -- $30,000 cut
Roads -- $79,370 recommended increase to deal with drainage issues
Library - $61,000 recommended increase
State's Attorney's -- $80,000 recommended increase that would allow the hiring of a new prosecutor

The executive had also recommended $750,000 in one-time funding for the Board of Education. State law requires that one-time funding requests be approved by the state, so the council did not feel comfortable providing this. Instead, the council cut that money and allocated $500,000 to help pay for the Board of Education's pre-kindergarten funding request.

While this budget was not exactly what I wanted, I joined all of my colleagues in voting for it. We also voted for a flat tax rate for next year. We had a very cooperative process within the council and between the two branches of government, and I think the end result serves the people of Wicomico County well. If you have any questions or concerns about the budget, please let me know.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

When I bought my house in a small development 20 years ago, I was told that the variance had been surveyed to have the road widen. This was an agreement with the Developer and the County. Rick Pollitt told me the same thing. To this day it has never been done and the citizens are being pushed off the road that has no shoulders by Chicken trucks going to the newly built chicken houses in Worcester County. This is destroying what little shoulders there are and closing the ditches. This in turn creates severe draining and causes flooding. There is no need in this happening, since there is a tax ditch in this immediate area. Head of County Roads Dept has been here with Pollitt when he was CE and has done nothing to this day. He is another worthless POS.

Anonymous said...

Yea he is useless. I tried to get some help from him for an issue to no avail.

Anonymous said...

Cant wait to vote this year. Vote wisely people it is your election to lose.

Anonymous said...

10:53, when Bob Culver took over the CE spot, did you bring this to his attention, or did you think Pollitt would tell Bob about it?

So, don't blame Mr. Culver for your failure to speak up. Bob did ask the Citizens what roads were most in need at the very beginning if his first term, and fixed them accordingly.

Anonymous said...

Killer thinks that he's doing the right thing, but he is woefully uninformed and uneducated on too many things, making him more of a hazard than a benefit. He needs to be replaced by someone with a more balanced outlook.

Anonymous said...

Same here in Delmar. County roads department suck. Same old broken promises and lies to council members and tax payers.