Speaker numbers apply only to this recording. Names come from transcript evidence. “Possibly” marks uncertain attribution.
The Anne Arundel County Council held a budget meeting on May 11, 2026, to hear presentations from several county departments regarding their Fiscal Year 2027 budget requests. The meeting included presentations from Anne Arundel Community College, Anne Arundel County Public Libraries, Anne Arundel County Public Schools (AACPS) covering operating and capital budgets, the State's Attorney's Office, the Board of Elections, the County Executive's Office/Chief Administrative Officer, and the Office of Law. Council members discussed funding levels, challenges, and unmet needs across these agencies.
All right. The May 11th, 2026 meeting of the Anne Rundle County Council is called to order. Please ensure all phones and electron devices are set to silent. We will begin by hearing our first set of department budget presentations, and we're going to begin today with the Anna Rundle Community College. Thank you. We're good. I'm just going to start by saying it's a little bittersweet because this is my last time presenting to you all, and it has been a pleasure working with each of you. So thank you for your support, your kindness, your willingness to listen, your willingness to debate. Morning. And now Tumanello, one of our board members. We're expecting our student might be coming in a little bit late. And then the stars of the show, why we're really here. And with that, I am going to turn it over to Melissa. Thank you. All right. And that is the ask respectfully that you maintain the county executive's budget. And we'll walk through the components of our budget next. Uh first, in terms of oops, yes. Um, in terms of how things are looking for the current year, a little context. The good news is that our student tuition and fees revenue is tracking a bit above budget, so that's because enrollment is exceeding um what our what we had budgeted for the current year. And um despite the inflationary costs that we all have the joy of experiencing. Umset those inflationary increases. However, we you will be seeing us um in the near future. We are going to be requesting a fourth quarter transfer to reallocate some um it re-allocate funds within existing categories to cover some increased legal costs that we are experiencing as we have two vacancies or one and a half FTE in our legal office. So that transfer is necessary to support our regulatory compliance area. And our fund balance is within our board policy. We have a board policy of five to ten percent of total expenses for um contingencies, which you may recall in the last year. We use that fund balance to repair the bridge that connects our east and west campus when that was failing. So as the president mentioned, we build our budget with the support of our board. They approved our budget at the end of February, and we have a board budget committee committee that meets multiple times during the year to discuss the underlying assumptions related to our operating and capital budget before it's brought to the full board for approval. And the county executive's budget provided just a little over a $2.4 million increase. So again, we're asking you to maintain that level of funding. Um, and we're gonna talk a little bit on the next slide about how we managed that reduction. A 2.4 million again, smidge over 2.4 million dollar reduction. And what we did is we reduced our planned compensation. We call it a pool because we it's a pool of funds that we allocate based on our compensation program. So we reduce that pool from a 6% pool to a 4% pool. And the caveat debt full and part-time faculty are subject to collective bargaining as both are now unionized. And then some little miscellaneous adjustments to fully balance that $213,000. This is the schedule that you're familiar with in your budget book. Again, we'll walk through the details of the $5.7 million budget increases and source of revenue. And just as a side note, there is an auxiliary enterprise and restricted line of $47 million, 47 and change, almost $48 million. And that's something that you appropriate, but generally those are self-supporting operations for the college. Again, the highlights we hit these previously, the $2.4 million increase in county funding that we yet again respectfully request that you maintain that level. And as I mentioned, it does provide funding for the college's pay package now at that 4% level.