For Immediate Release: Saturday, April 22, 2017
Montgomery Council committee
to discuss programs for youth, aging
and housing for the disabled
Also on Monday, April 24: Budgets for Police, Corrections
ROCKVILLE, Md., April 21, 2017—The Montgomery County Council’s Health and Human Services (HHS) Committee at 9:30 a.m. on Monday, April 24, will review the Fiscal Year 2018 operating budget requests for the Department of Health Human Services programs for Children, Youth and Family Services; Special Needs Housing; and Aging and Disability Services. The worksession is part of the Council’s review of County Executive Ike Leggett’s recommended budget.
The Council and its committees will review the recommended budget over the next five weeks as they work toward adopting a budget for the new fiscal year. The Council is scheduled to reach tentative agreement on the budget on May 18 and to formally adopt the budget on May 25. The new budget will go into effect on July 1.
The HHS Committee, which is chaired by Councilmember George Leventhal and includes Councilmembers Roger Berliner and Craig Rice, will meet in the Seventh Floor Hearing 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 .
The recommended budget includes new positions for Aging and Disability Services.
The Adult Services Protective Services (APS) Investigation unit assessed 592 vulnerable adults in Fiscal Year (FY) 2012. By 2016, APS investigated a record 808 clients. This is a 37 percent increase over the last five fiscal years.
A significant trend is the increase in financial exploitation cases which rose from 16 percent of cases in 2012 to 27 percent of cases in FY16. The number of court cases involving financial exploitation has more than doubled since FY13—with an average of nearly 25 successful guardianship of property cases filed annually in FY16. The increase in financial exploitation cases can be linked to the passage of the Mandated Fiduciary Institutional Reporting Law of 2012 and the increased awareness of crimes against Seniors that has been a focus of the County Executive.
At 2 p.m. in the Seventh Floor Hearing Room, the Planning, Housing and Economic Development Committee, which is chaired by Councilmember Nancy Floreen and includes Councilmembers Leventhal and Hans Riemer, will continue its review of the budget request of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC).
On April 17, the Government Operations and Fiscal Policy Committee supported funding a "WiFi in the Parks" pilot at the cost of $100,000 using the Cable fund balance and transferring the resources to M-NCPPC for implementation within its FY18 work program. The project, which has been coordinated with the Interagency Technology Policy and Coordination Committee, would install wireless access points within Woodside Urban Park, a popular park with a diverse user base. The pilot project will allow assessment of operational impact and requirements to support free public WiFi deployments, including bandwidth impact on FiberNet and other long term support requirements.
At 2 p.m. in the Third Floor Conference Room, the Public Safety Committee, which is chaired by Councilmember Marc Elrich and includes Councilmembers Tom Hucker and Sidney Katz, will review the FY18 budget requests of the Department of Correction and Rehabilitation and the Police Department.
For FY18, the County Executive recommended total expenditures of $274.3 million for the Police Department, a 3.49 percent increase from the FY17 approved budget. The recommended FY18 budget adds six new patrol officers for the Second District (Bethesda) and five new patrol officers for the Fourth District (Gaithersburg/Montgomery Village). It also adds two new officers for Community Engagement and three new police aides for School Bus Camera program.
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Release ID: 17-139