People-Centered Budget Focuses on Delivering High Quality of Life

FREDERICK, Md. – Announcing record investments in education, safe communities, and agriculture preservation, Frederick County Executive Jan Gardner today unveiled a people-centered budget for Fiscal Year 2023 designed to ensure a high quality of life for the people who live and work in Frederick County. For the eighth-straight year, the budget maintains the existing property and income tax rates.

“My budget invests in what matters most,” Executive Gardner said. “We are keeping the promise of public education, ensuring safe communities, improving public health, valuing our rich history and protecting our agricultural heritage, and advancing the overarching vision and priorities found in Livable Frederick.”

Highlights of the proposed FY23 budget include:

•  Keeping the promise of public education with a record investment, providing $35 million of new funding, including $1.6 million in one-time funding for Chromebooks for elementary students. Ongoing operating funds of $33.4 million will ensure the best teachers in the classroom, aid recovery from the pandemic, and ensure positive student outcomes. School construction projects are accelerated with an unprecedented nine projects advancing in the upcoming year.
• Ensuring safe communities with a record investment in public safety, including funding for body cameras and the Police Accountability Board.
•  Delivering a healthy Frederick with a full continuum of care for mental health and substance misuse with the expansion of mobile crisis and the construction of a crisis stabilization center.
• Leaving a legacy of agriculture for future generations by more than doubling the funding for agriculture preservation, which will achieve Livable Frederick’s goal of preserving 100,000 acres as much as 10 years sooner. 
•  Advancing Seniors First initiatives to support the fastest-growing segment of the population with the delivery of food to vulnerable seniors, the expansion of paratransit, and making the Virtual Senior Center permanent.
• Valuing County Workers, who are on the front line delivering effective and efficient services, through competitive pay; and
• Targeted Income Tax Relief for those who need it most, seniors and ALICE households.

Fiscal Year 2023 begins July 1, 2022. The County Council will hold a public hearing on the proposed budget at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, April 19. For details, visit www.FrederickCountyMD.gov/CountyCouncil. A complete copy of the operating and capital budgets is available at www.FrederickCountyMD.gov/Budget. The full budget presentation can be viewed at www.FrederickCountyMD.gov/FCGtv.