Commissioners incorporate sheriff pay request but leave correctional-pay decision for later

St. Mary's County finance staff on March 15 told the Board of Commissioners they had incorporated the sheriff's requested salary adjustments and vehicle costs into the draft fiscal 2023 budget as placeholders, but commissioners did not adopt a final pay plan for correctional officers and asked for more information and options.

The county's chief financial officer, Jeanette Cudmore, said the sheriff submitted a budget letter and spreadsheets that included a line-item request of $566,000 described as "increase to deputy's shares pay, closely aligned to MSP" and that the sheriff also listed a set of essential cost changes that together with vehicles total roughly $1.5 million. "If you look at the sheet on page 158 ... the sheriff had indicated that possibly increasing the scale for the law by 4.5%," Cudmore said, and the county placed that $566,000 request as a placeholder in the salary account pending the commission's direction.

Why it matters: Commissioners were balancing a larger draft budget that begins the day with an available surplus but includes nonrecurring federal ARPA money and other one-time items; approving recurring salary scale increases for the sheriff's office would add to on-going expense pressures. At the same time county leaders and the sheriff…