Caroline County holds FY2026 budget hearings; volunteers seek property-tax incentive and training funds

Caroline County Commissioners convened public hearings on the fiscal year 2026 operating and capital budget and on municipal real property tax differential rates, where volunteer fire leaders urged a property-tax incentive and $20,000 for specialized training and county officials warned of a roughly $2 million gap between spending requests and projected revenue.

The comment period opened with testimony from the vice president of the Caroline County Firemen's Association, who asked the commissioners to consider a $20,000 appropriation for specialty rescue and heavy-equipment training and to adopt a municipal property-tax incentive for volunteers who meet eligibility requirements. "If we can retain the people that we have, the retainment will take care of the recruitment," the vice president said, arguing that a tax incentive for volunteers who serve three years would help recruiting and keep volunteers in the county.

Jonah Owens, the county library director, thanked the commissioners for support during his first year and asked them to continue backing library operations as they review the FY2026 requests. "It's been a successful year. It's been challenging, but we've had a great year at the library," Owens said.

George Paris, speaking for the organization identified as CCCA, asked the board to approve a $6,500 operating allocation for the group's arts programming and community classes in Denton. "The $6,500 request is pretty much what we've asked for, and it makes a huge difference in our bottom line," Paris told the commissioners.

Commissioners spent much of the hearing placing those requests in the context of the county's fiscal outlook. Commissioner Porter said county staff estimate roughly $79.6 million in service requests and that the county needs to identify about $2 million in savings to balance the budget. Porter outlined several state-level revenue changes he said are pressuring the county budget: increased mandatory contributions to the board of education, reductions in disparity and teacher pension supplement grants, transfer of certain state expenses to the county, and a proposed state income-tax rebracketing. "The only number that we control up here is the property tax rate, and we've held the line for 9 years," Commissioner Porter said, adding that the board will evaluate testimony and seek additional budget reductions where feasible.

Discussion at the hearing included details about volunteer training and equipment costs. The fire association representative described current training requirements for firefighters and EMTs and estimated combined training often exceeds several hundred hours for a firefighter who also becomes EMT-certified. He also described personal protective equipment and replacement costs: turnout gear, air-packs and other equipment are recurring, consumable expenses and some departments are moving to issuing two sets of gear per person because of decontamination concerns.

Commissioners and staff did not adopt budget changes at the hearing; the meeting consisted of public testimony and motions to open and close the two hearings. The board scheduled a second public hearing on the proposed FY2026 budget for May 6; supporting budget documents and hearing details will be published on the county website.

The hearings also included routine procedural votes to open and close each hearing; no appropriation motions or final budget votes were taken at this session. The commissioners thanked staff for preparing the budget documents and emphasized the likelihood of difficult choices as state revenue shifts continue to pressure local finances.