Carroll County Director of Management and Budget, Ted Zaleski gave the Board of County Commissioners a sense of where the county budget stands for the first quarter of FY24 last week during open session.  

Currently there is a potential for a 7.5 million surplus, however 5 million of that is already assigned to future years.

The county will get its first major distribution of income tax revenue at the end of this month and while it will not give any definitive information, it could serve as a first look at possible trends for the rest of the fiscal year.

At this time there are no expectations from the budget office for a surplus in revenue.  Recordation revenue in particular is looking like it might not come in at the amount initially budgeted.  The county budgeted 15.5 million in recordation revenue for FY24.   That amount was down from record highs over the past few years of close to 20 million dollars.  According to Mr. Zaleski home values and the amount that is being paid in recordation taxes are holding steady however the number of transactions are down.

On the expenditure side of the equation, there is currently a surplus of 7.7 million being driven mostly by the reserve for contingencies fund, which has 6.2 million untouched.  Another small contributor is open employment positions across the county.

The effects of a possible federal government shutdown on Carroll County was discussed.  A large number of government contractors and around 8% of federal employees live here and if they are unable to work it would directly impact the county’s income tax revenues.  Also federal grant processes and other approvals would be interrupted.

In terms of the state budget, multi-year outlooks are not good.  There is talk of both tax increases and spending decreases.  BluePrint funding is also a popular topic although Mr. Zaleski predicts that it is unlikely any legislation will be passed during the upcoming session starting in January 2024 that would impact the current fiscal year budget.

Questions or Concerns can be directed to the Office of Management and Budget

tzaleski@carrollcountymd.gov, 410-386-2082