St. Mary's County commissioners reviewed grant-funded programs, a list of frozen positions and countywide budget assumptions at a March 7 work session and gave staff direction on next steps in preparing a recommended FY12 budget.

Elaine Kramer, chief financial officer, and Jeanette Cudmore, deputy CFO, reviewed the operating budget materials and a grants-match listing. They emphasized that many department increases reflect grant funding that does not require county matching funds; the grant schedules itemize federal, state and local grants and identify whether a county match is required.

The board discussed a long list of frozen positions that remain as FTEs in the budget but are not funded. Staff said retaining frozen FTEs preserves organizational records of positions that may be needed if workload returns. Commissioners asked staff to return with recommendations on which frozen positions to retain and which to eliminate permanently; no sweeping unfreezes were approved on March 7.

On budget-wide assumptions commissioners gave clear guidance: remove merit and cola (step or merit increases) from the FY12 baseline used to calculate the recommended budget and update calculations for actual pension and health-fringe rates. Commissioners said staff should return next week with recalculated totals using the new actuarial and fringe information. Kramer noted the county's unreserved, undesignated fund balance was about $12.6 million as of June 30, 2010, and described options for using fund balance for one-time items, pay-go capital, or retiree health liabilities (OPEB).

Staff also walked through a set of non-county agency requests and said they would prepare a categorized list by function to help commissioners weigh "need versus nice" when deciding funding priorities.

Commissioners did not adopt funding increases for non-county agencies or unfreeze positions at the March 7 meeting; they asked staff to provide more detail on grant matches, frozen positions and non-county agency requests before the next work session.