Take a look at the county payroll and last minute budget agreements including a historic investment in economic development
By Andrew Harris
The Allegany County Legislature spent the better part November crafting the 2022 budget and the hard work appears to have paid off. The budget was approved during the November 22nd legislative meeting, today we look how that budget was crafted.
On November 17th, the most recent Committee of the Whole(COW) meeting, legislators approved adjustments to the tentative budget. Most of those adjustments dealt with public safety accounts and Homeland Security Department funding, with net adjustments totaling about $45,000. Legislators announced a major investment in economic development, a million dollars for landfill closure costs, and half million dollars in property tax reduction.
This level of investment in economic development, $7.5 million dollars, is a massive increase for Allegany County. Legislator Deb Root has worked hard on this budget component and we will be talking more with her later this week about this historic investment and its goals.
Another very encouraging decision that legislators made during this COW session was to reduce property taxes, again. While the approved tentative budget already included a tax cut, the Chairman of the Budget Committee succeeded in convincing counterparts to go a step further. In a nod to fiscal conservatives who frequently cite the county reserves as excessive, legislators approved an additional half million dollars in tax reduction. Read the meeting minutes below:
