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DENTON – Immediately following a positive fiscal year 2025 audit report at the February 17 County Commissioners meeting, Caroline County’s Director of Finance Danny Fox and Grant Coordinator Stacey Seward took the first step in the FY27 budget preparation process: presenting the departments’ budget requests.
For capital improvements, Fox explained that the county has about $9.8 million total to divide between the departments for their respective projects from the general fund and capital reserve. The total amount in asks from all of the county departments combined was $10.5 million, including line items like a new ambulance, replacing certain law enforcement vehicles, road repaving and maintenance projects, a mobile spay and neuter clinic, parking lot construction at the circuit courthouse, and the local share of funding for the design process of the new north county middle school.
There was also a line reserved for a new detention center, which is still in the infancy stages of planning. Nonetheless, Fox said it would be best to start saving for the anticipated build now, as it is estimated to cost roughly $40 million and will be a 50/50 split in funding between state and local dollars.
Commissioner Larry Porter said that for these capital projects, the County Commissioners go through the requests line by line to decide what gets funded, with a two-thirds majority required for approval. While this was just a preliminary presentation, he said they will start that process soon.
For the operating budget, the county has a projected revenue of about $84.8 million. This money comes in the form of property taxes and income taxes. However, the total operating budget for the county is currently just shy of 85.6 million.
This means that between the capital and operating budgets, the county will have to “trim out” about $1.5 million to break even, which Commissioner Porter said is “do-able.” But Commission President Travis Breeding pointed out that with two very costly items on the horizon - the middle school and detention center builds - the county will have to squeeze money out of the FY27 budget to prepare for these expenses as well, rather than simply break even.
“I hope people understand just how much work goes into this,” Commissioner Porter said. The entire Commission thanked Fox, Seward, and the rest of the County’s finance team for their work so far in preparing the FY27 budget.
