Cecil County Budget: Moore Boosts Exec Spending, Cuts County Council $ for Advisers; Employee Health Costs Explode

Cecil County Executive Tari Moore’s new proposed budget would boost her own office’s spending by 3.2 percent while cutting the County Council’s current budget by 4.2 percent, especially in accounts that could enable the Council to hire independent advisers to review or challenge her policies.

In addition, county employees have a “Cadillac” health care program that provides such privileged benefits that the plan could face federal tax penalties in the next few years unless benefits are scaled back to more reasonable levels, according to the county’s Human Resources director. In Moore’s new Fiscal 2016 budget proposal, county employee health costs are projected to rise 31.6 percent.

[CORRECTION: County Director of Administration Al Wein advised Cecil Times that the County Executive does not receive health care benefits. Our initial report said she was entitled to those benefits, while County Councilors were barred from benefits. Wein says both legislative and executive branch elected officials do not get benefits.]

In her budget plan, Moore cut 4.2 percent from the County Council’s proposed operating budget, focusing her cuts on areas, such as professional consulting services, that might enable the Council to challenge her policies or receive independent advice on key issues affecting the county.

In particular, Moore imposed a 20 percent cut in the County Council’s “professional services” line item. Most recently, that account was used to hire the noted Baltimore economist, Anirban Basu, to advise the Council on ways to challenge the state’s huge toll increases on the Hatem Bridge that have negatively impacted businesses in, and traveling to, Cecil County. But that account could also be used by the Council to hire other independent experts to review the executive’s policies and proposals.

Moore also made a $14,000 cut in the Council’s “outside” legal counsel fund that has been used recently to advise the panel on zoning issues coming before the Council for final decisions. But that account could also be used to hire independent legal advisors to review actions and advice by the County Attorney who serves both the Council and the County Executive. County Attorney Jason Allison, who is now a full-time paid county employee, provides general legal advice to the Council and primarily serves the County Executive, and reports to Moore in the administrative chain of command.

County Council members receive a paltry $25,000 a year salary, with no benefits, under the county Charter. Moore is paid $98,000 a year.

While the executive proposed a cut for the County Council by 4.2 percent over the current budget year, she proposed a 3.2 percent increase in spending for her own County Executive budget in Fiscal 2016, in comparison with the current budget year. Within her own administrative budget, she calls for a 32.4 percent boost in spending for “supplies and materials.”

In her overall budget, which is now under review by the County Council, Moore is proposing a 2 percent property tax rate increase for all county property owners and a wide variety of other user fee boosts for county citizens and businesses, as well as a significant tax rise on real estate transactions that could boost the costs of a home purchased for $300,000 by $1,500 in new fees.

Meanwhile, during a recent County Council budget review session, the county’s Human Resources Director, Donna Nichols, explained that rising health care costs are an increasing burden for the county budget. But premium boosts would be split equally between employees and the county government (taxpayers), she said.

So for a family (consisting of three or more people, with no limit on the number of children in the family who would be covered for the same cost), the current biweekly cost paid by an employee of $102 would rise to $117. (The county is self-insured, meaning that it pays the actual costs of medical care, although it hires an outside administrator to review and handle claims processing and there is a “stop loss” insurance factor that limits the county’s per year, per employee costs to $200,000 in medical expenses.)

Nichols explained that recently the county has had several high-cost medical cases that boosted expenses, and she noted that just one employee with cancer or a devastating accident can skew the self-insured county’s costs.

Nichols also explained that under the federal “Affordable Care Act” the generous health care benefits that Cecil County provides to its employees would be considered a “Cadillac” plan—that would be subject to tax code penalties in the future because it is considered too generous and not cost-effective.

The federal “Cadillac” health plan penalties do not take effect until 2018, Nichols said, so the county has time to re-configure its employee health benefits to “shift more costs to employees” so as to avoid penalties. (So county employees might have to drive a Honda Civic of health benefits instead of a luxury vehicle?)

The rising costs of health care affect all business operators, and the county government is not alone in facing that problem. But private employers have often coped with that problem by cutting benefits and/or shifting a rising proportion of the costs to employees. But the Cecil County government is, so far, addressing that issue by keeping benefits largely as is and equally bearing the higher costs with employees, according to Moore’s budget.

In other areas of Moore’s administrative budget proposals, there are several county government department heads who earn more money than Moore— whose salary is specified by the county charter. Top earner, at $123,273, is, as would be expected, county Director of Administration Al Wein—a veteran county employee who almost single-handedly ran the county government with integrity and competence during many years of the part-time County Commissioner form of government. (When an earthquake shook the county government seat several years ago, it was no surprise that county emergency officials spirited Wein off to the emergency operations center to oversee the emergency response.)

Richard Brooks, the Department of Emergency Services director, is the next highly compensated county employee, earning $114,691, according to the new budget, to oversee radio dispatch of emergency 911 calls, various emergency preparedness operations and three paramedic ambulance units.

In contrast, the independently-elected Sheriff—who is in charge of all law enforcement, anti-drug initiatives and multi-agency task forces, the county Detention Center and Community Corrections operations, earns just $75,075 in Fiscal 2016—under legislation approved by the General Assembly in 2014. (The outgoing former Sheriff Barry Janney had proposed a higher figure for his successor—before current Sheriff Scott Adams had been nominated to run for office—but Tari Moore cut Janney’s proposal to specify a lower figure for the Sheriff in her recommendations to the General Assembly, which then followed her lead to cut the Sheriff’s salary boost.)

Moore’s new budget proposal gives Brook’s Emergency Services department a 14.5 percent total budget increase.

In contrast, Moore denied Sheriff Adams’ law enforcement agency a request for five new patrol deputies to replace officers re-assigned to anti-drug special units as part of Adams’ re-structuring of the agency to address drug issues since he took office in December. Adams voluntarily cut the Detention Center budget, but Moore cut additional funds from that program.