For Immediate Release: Thursday, March 23, 2017
Montgomery Council to meet with
County Executive Leggett
on Thursday, March 23, regarding his recommended FY18 operating budget
ROCKVILLE, Md., March 22, 2017—The Montgomery County Council will meet with County Executive Ike Leggett at 1 p.m. on Thursday, March 23, to discuss the key elements of his recommended Fiscal Year 2018 operating budget. County Executive Leggett released his budget on March 14, and he traditionally briefs the Council on the details on the day of the release. However, the meeting was postponed due to last week’s winter storm.
The meeting between the County’s elected officials will be held in the Third Floor Conference Room of the Council Office Building at 100 Maryland Ave. in Rockville. The meeting will be televised live by County Cable Montgomery (CCM). The channel can be viewed on Cable Channels 996 (high definition) and 6 (standard definition) on Comcast; Channels 1056 (HD) and 6 (SD) on RCN; and Channel 30 on Verizon.
The session also will be available live via streaming through the Council web site at http://tinyurl.com/z9982v8 .
County Executive Leggett recommended a budget of $5.4 billion for the year that begins on July 1. The budget increases County spending for Montgomery County Public Schools by $54 million and holds property taxes at the Charter Limit by reducing the tax rate by 2.5 cents per $100 assessed valuation.
The FY18 total budget increases spending from $5.3 billion to $5.44 billion, a 2.7 percent increase over the FY17 approved budget. The median tax bill (for a house assessed at $400,000) would see an annual increase of $20 (from $4,106 currently to $4,126 in the coming year)—due entirely to increased property values. The budget includes a $692 tax credit for owner-occupied residences.
Over the next two months, the Council will review all aspects of the recommended budget and make changes if it believes they are needed. The Council is scheduled to adopt the FY18 operating budget in late May.
At 2 p.m. Thursday in the Seventh Floor Hearing Room, the Council’s Government Operations and Fiscal Policy Committee, which is chaired by Councilmember Nancy Navarro and includes Councilmembers Sidney Katz and Hans Riemer, and its Health and Human Services Committee, which is chaired by Councilmember George Leventhal and includes Councilmembers Roger Berliner and Craig Rice, will hold a joint worksession on procurement issues relating to non-profit organizations and community grants.
The worksession is being held to ensure that grant awards are processed efficiently and timely. While called "grants," all awards are actually non-competitive contracts. The joint committee also will discuss some of the barriers that non-profits have encountered that have made processing and modifying contracts more difficult.
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Release ID: 17-095