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New Md. budget cuts firefighter shifts

Nixing 4th shift would affect 739 firefighters, who might have to work 13 more shifts per year apiece

By Allison Bourg
The Capital

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — The county’s firefighters could be working 13 more shifts a year under the budget proposal released Monday by County Executive John R. Leopold.

Leopold’s $1.2 billion spending plan for fiscal 2013 slashes the county Fire Department’s fourth shift, which would require firefighters to work one day before taking off the next two.

Right now, firefighters work one day, then have three days off. The change would save the county about $7 million a year, but require firefighters to work the extra shifts.

“We just can’t afford” the current system, Leopold said Monday morning after he delivered his budget address.

County officials said the proposed budget for next year, which is about 4.8 percent more than this year’s spending plan, was difficult to craft because of funding mandates and other fluctuations at the state level.

The “doomsday budget” passed by the General Assembly last week also could leave the county with $13.7 million less in state funding unless lawmakers pass a new budget by July 1.

“The state mandates have been the heavy-handed hammer,” Leopold said in an interview after the budget address.

His plan also sends 15 more police officers to Arundel Mills mall, adds another life support unit to the Harmans-Dorsey station and beefs up staffing at the Maryland City and West Annapolis fire stations.

John Hammond, the county’s chief administrative officer, said the county has offered firefighters a raise to compensate for the extra shifts. He declined to give any details because officials are still negotiating with the unions.

“If they were happy, I can tell you we’d have an agreement with them,” Hammond said.

Craig Oldershaw, president of the union representing most of the county’s firefighters, said Monday it was “presumptuous” for Leopold to say he was nixing the fourth shift when the union is due to go to arbitration at the end of the month. The change would affect 739 firefighters.

“We negotiated this in good faith in 2007, and the current shift we’re on, it’s been shown it’s the best way for firefighters and paramedics to recover properly,” Oldershaw said.

County schools

Anne Arundel school officials said Monday the county executive’s spending plan gives them most of the funding they were seeking, including money for 62 additional teachers.

County officials said they were funding the Board of Education’s entire budget request, minus $33.8 million the board wanted for employee raises. The school system’s budget comprises about half of the county’s budget; under Leopold’s fiscal 2013 proposal, schools would get $572.5 million.

The County Council has until the end of May to adopt Leopold’s plan or craft a new one. A series of public hearings begins next month.

Though next year’s proposed budget nixes furloughs for county workers for the first time in two years, they won’t be getting any raises, either.

So it didn’t seem appropriate to pay for raises for school employees, Hammond said.

The school system requested the salary increases as part of negotiated agreements made several years ago, during better economic times, schools Superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell said.

School officials also claim the county isn’t meeting maintenance-of-effort requirements from the state, which require the county to give schools a certain amount of money each year or else lose state aid.

School officials originally requested $597 million from the county and said that even after accounting for increases in the costs of teacher pensions they’re still being shorted $12.1 million.

The $116.3 million allocated for school construction projects next year — part of the county’s six-year, $1 billion capital spending plan — will fund several major projects. Those include a new Severna Park High School, the completion of the Northeast High School renovation and the renovation of four elementary schools.

But school officials said Leopold deviated from the county’s six-year plan when he didn’t fund several planned elementary school renovations and additions.

Renovations of Crofton Elementary, Rolling Knolls Elementary, Benfield Elementary and West Annapolis Elementary were taken out of next year’s budget and won’t be funded until at least 2016, they said.

School officials also pointed to nearly $10 million they requested for additions, which they did not receive. That money was supposed to go toward gym additions at both Maryland City Elementary and Waugh Chapel Elementary schools, as well as a classroom addition at Crofton Middle School.

Council reaction

The proposed budget also factors in $15 million in revenue from the Maryland Live! casino in Hanover, which is expected to open in June. That would balance out any losses from the state’s doomsday budget, said County Councilman Jamie Benoit, D-Crownsville.

Councilmen said Monday, after Leopold’s address, that they were pleased with the budget proposal. But they cautioned that a lot could change during the hearing process next month.

“The big thing for me is that he’s chosen to get rid of the furlough days (for county employees), and that’s fantastic,” said Councilman Chris Trumbauer, D-Annapolis. “The employees have been sacrificing for a long time.”

Council Chairman Derek Fink, R-Pasadena, said he was pleased with the county executive’s decision to fund several much-anticipated projects in his area as part of the capital budget.

Leopold is proposing $8.8 million in construction money for a new Eastern District police station on Pasadena Road, $4.1 million to build a public boat ramp at Fort Smallwood Park, $2 million for traffic improvements at Woods and Mountain Road, and $500,000 for planning and engineering for a new Lake Shore Fire Station.

This jurisdiction needs the Fort Smallwood Park boat ramp, Leopold said, because “for a county with more than 500 miles of shoreline, it is unacceptable that we only have two locations with free water access to everyone, Truxtun Park and Sandy Point State Park ... It’s a black eye on this county.”

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