Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

It is Tuesday, April 21st, 2026.

Welcome to the release of the fiscal year twenty twenty-seven proposed budget presentation.

As we always do, we'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silent reflection.

I plug allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all the computer.

This is not the final document that's going to come next month after uh community presentations, which are set to begin this week, and a formal public hearing as well.

So just as a reminder, there is no public comment today because this is only a presentation.

So again, what we have and are offering today is what the commissioners are proposing for uh fiscal year twenty twenty-seven.

And to take us through everything, I'll turn it over to Ted and Heidi.

Okay, thank you.

This is the eighty first time I've done this.

That was a joke.

I'm not sure how many times it's been, but it's been a lot.

Maybe it feels with eighty one with us.

Feels like eighty one with us.

So we're here to talk about the commissioners' FY twenty-seven proposed budget and our plans for FY twenty-seven through thirty-two.

This presentation is not an attempt to cover everything that's in the budget.

Uh we are trying to highlight the things that are changing, the things that are probably interesting to people.

We want to give information on actions that the commissioners took in a larger context.

And now we get a little deeper into that idea.

So, what are we going to cover?

We want to talk about how did we get here?

Starting point for the commissioners' deliberations was a recommended budget that the budget office puts together based on the current plans in place and whatever information we have now that we didn't have a year ago, whatever new direction we might have from the commissioners that we didn't have a year ago.

We'll talk about the Commissioner actions, the things they actually said we want to do this thing that is not in our current budget or plans.

We'll talk about some state actions and how that affects us in Carroll County.

Talk some about how things are changing from the existing plan to the plan that's being proposed.

We'll go through some operating highlights and some capital highlights.

Because we're approaching things in several different ways, there are items that might come up more than one time.

Only two slides, and I already fell behind.

Okay, Commissioner Actions.

Carroll County Public Schools, they increased what we're proposing to fund the school system by $6.5 million above the $7.5 million that was already built into the plan.

They added a capital project for a modernization or replacement to Liberty High School.

There's a number of HVAC and roof projects that moved up in the plan, partially as a result of removing Sykesville Middle and Freedom Elementary School addition projects.

And Sykesville and Freedom is uh an interesting situation.

Um the timelines for the school systems capital and our budget adoption don't line up very well.

So right now, Sykesville and Freedom are in the school systems plans, although there's expectation that next time around, they are going to change that.

Community college, commissioners added 450,000 for a feasibility study for the college's trades, technology, and training building.

As of this proposed budget, there is not construction funding built into the plan yet.

This is a project that will be something approaching 200 million dollars.

Public library, commissioners added $600,000 to support salary increases, funding to support three additional positions, and another capital project for a modernization or replacement of the Eldersburg Library.

Commissioners added $65,000 for a video series that they want to do in cooperation with the State's attorney's office looking at various aspects of drug use, abuse, law enforcement, prosecution, rehab, and everything else that goes along with that.

Added one-time funding of 50,000 to the Carroll County Literacy Council.

In the circuit court, responding to anticipated legislation on how courts need to be staffed.

They added three part-time and one full-time bailiff.

Another significant capital project.

This was already partially in our plans but has evolved some.

This will be a major reconfiguration of courtroom number six to make it a can't think of the word I want.

Put us in a position to have major jury trials like we do in courtroom 10 now.

But also the State's attorney will be vacating space that they have in the state in the courthouse annex for the new building that they're going to be moving into.

This also will include redoing that space.

Emergency management and communications, commissioners added two part-time call taker positions.

This is an interesting change.

We're constantly challenged on staffing in 911 and constantly challenged on keeping up with volume.

They're going to try these two part-time positions that won't work the same sort of schedules that all the other 911 people do, so they can focus them on their peak times and days of activity.

State's attorney's office, Commissioners included 2.5 percent for a salary increase.

This is beyond the general increase that will come up a little later, and added funding for a paralegal position to help them with the volume of work that they're facing.

Fire and EMS added eight firefighter paramedic positions and four lieutenant training and safety officer positions.

These positions uh were not in the plan, so this is new now.

And part of what we're going through with our taking on EMS.

Um kind of learning as we go and uh to some extent responding to how things evolve.