CAMBRIDGE — The Dorchester County Council unanimously passed its balanced fiscal year 2025 budget at a meeting on May 28, acknowledging what it took to get the budget across the finish line as well as what challenges are likely coming down the pike.
“Next year’s going to be bad,” Council President Lenny Pfeffer said at the end of the meeting. “This year we made it by the skin of our teeth to balance this budget.”
The fiscal year 2025 budget — an $81,938,414 operating and $4,584,711 capital budget — includes a 5% raise across the board for county employees. The operating budget increased by about $2.5 million, or roughly 3%, compared to fiscal year 2024. The capital budget decreased by about $6.3 million, which is roughly 58%, compared to fiscal year 2024.
The county’s tax rates are the same as the fiscal year 2024 budget. The real property tax is $1 per assessed $100 of value. The personal property tax is $2.44 per assessed $100 of value.
Council member William Nichols said a lot of cuts had to be made to get the budget to where it is.
“We went through H-E- double-L to complete this budget,” he said. “A lot of people gave up a lot of things to make this work.”
Nichols said he hopes that next year the council can be extra generous with the departments that gave up a lot to allow for a balanced budget.
“For those who gave so much to make this work, we’ve got to go back and pick them up,” he said, adding that there are three specific departments he has in mind. He did not name which departments those are.
Although Council Member Ricky Travers doesn’t think this budget was easy to get to the finish line, he said they were able to give all county employees a raise without raising the tax rates.
“That was our number one priority going into this,” he said. “Trying to take care of our employees that are taking care of us.”
Travers said of the 18 budgets he has passed in his time as a council member, the fiscal year 2025 budget ranks in his top two of being the worst to do.
“I need the public to understand that it’s not this group’s spending habits that’s causing this problem,” he said. “We need to go across the bridge there to Annapolis, and it’s their spending habits that are coming back on us.”
Travers said when the General Assembly passes bills for things like the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future without knowing how those things will be paid for, it has a “devastating effect” on rural Maryland.
“I can tell you that I hope that it gets better,” he said. “But when you’re sitting on the side of the bank in the boat and you see the sky is getting cloudy, you know what’s coming. You better get in the boat and head to the shore.”
Before the council passed the budget, it amended the budget to allot about $28,000 more to the volunteer fire departments and companies from the county’s contingency fund. The volunteer departments were originally budgeted a total of $1.06 million in the fiscal year 2025 budget.
Pfeffer said this modification to the budget means that each fire department or company will receive roughly $2,000 more than originally allotted in the budget.
At the end of the meeting, Pfeffer brought up a story he heard on the news about another county on the Shore discussing whether to fund a new school using bonds or pulling from its $70 million in reserves.
“We don’t have that luxury by any means,” he said, adding that Dorchester County has a small, strategic reserve in case of a catastrophic event.
Pfeffer said when it comes to the fiscal year 2026 budget, the council has concerns about what Blueprint costs will be for the county.
“We love our teachers,” he said. “We love the children. We want to provide them the best education possible. It’s just, we’re out of money.”
Pfeffer said nobody on the council wants to raise taxes, they want to see the tax base increase.
“We have to figure ways that we can increase that tax base within the budget that we have right now,” he said.
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