Â鶹´«Ã½

BOARD OF EDUCATION BUDGETDerek Simmons, superintendent of Caroline County Public Schools, and Jill Hignutt, CFO of The Caroline Board of Education, requested amendments to the Board of Education’s 2024 budget.

“We are here to share where the budget adjustments needed to take place in the operating budget and align those with the actuals at the end of the fiscal year,� Simmons said.

Hignett gave the commissioners a copy of her short presentation, then began detailing the request.

“Starting with prescriptive revenues, there is a change of $6,389,071 related to our grant funding. Many of our grants cross fiscal years, so we must adjust the revenues to match the expenditures that were actually seen at year end,� Hignutt said.

Then she shifted the attention to expenditures like driver salaries for transportation. Between fuel costs and bus driver salaries, the school system overspent about $39,000. She also mentioned parking lot repavement projects and classroom renovations.

There was a $5,782,498 surplus noted in the total budgeted revenues. According to Daniel Fox, deputy county administrator, the excess of revenue over expenditures is retained by the Board of Education to go to its fund balance.

The commissioners approved the amended budget.

EMPLOYEE ADVISORY BOARDNext up was the Employee Advisory Board, an authority that overlooks the corrections, emergency services, planning and codes, public works, recreation and parks, and administration departments. There is also a non-voting member department, the Department of Human Resources.

Todd Lord, chairman of the Advisory Board for Caroline County, thanked the commissioners for improving pensions for retirees and achieving competitive pay increases to help with recruitment and retention.

The board also wants cost of living adjustments due to the inflation following the pandemic.

Lord proposed an initiative to go forward as he hears from staff about pay and salaries.

“We recommend merit pay increases annually for step based off of employee evaluations. We want to get away from the bunching of salaries. Health care plans for retirees, that is another one of our initiatives being discussed heavily in departments,� Lord said.

He said the goal was to increase retention and have attraction for the employees under the board’s care.

“Right now we want to provide a health care plan that employees can take into retirement,� Lord said. “Having their pension in retirement would be a huge benefit in retention for our staff.�

Commissioner Frank Bartz responded, “Health care for retirees, that is a hard undertaking for the county.�

Another commissioner said the same.

Porter said, “I don’t foresee that we are going to be able to do health care benefits for people who are retiring at 55. The same inflation figures that you are using, we are facing as well.�

President Travis Breeding said, “We have to find that balance — taking care of our employees and taking care of our tax payers and the constituents of the county.�

PUBLIC WORKS REORGANIZATIONRobin Eaton, director of the Department of Public Works, asked the commissioners for the authority to reorganize the department to create a project manager position. He spoke of maintaining the 80 miles of dirt roads in the county.

“Our original structure had three crew leaders, so doing away with one of those crew leader positions and creating a project inspector slash utility locator,� Eaton said.

“It is actually three crews. Two under crew leaders and one dirt road crew with four employees under the road superintendent,� Kathleen Freeman, county administrator, said.

The commissioners approved the reorganization.