The St. Mary’s County Commissioners voted on a $192.6 million recommended budget for fiscal 2012; it heads to public hearing on April 26. The commissioners cut 20 county jobs for 2012 and chose to leave the rate for property taxes at 2011 rates. As reported by SoMDNews.com:

This year the constant yield rate for property taxes actually called for county government to increase the tax rate, from 85.7 cents to 86.07 cents per $100 of assessed value. The board opted to leave the rate as is, which should result in a decrease of $409,396 in revenues.

“This year we’re actually decreasing taxes,” said Jeannett Cudmore, deputy finance director.

Not included in the proposed budget were recommendations from the St. Mary’s County Board of Education – their proposal was received after the county departmental deadline for budget considerations. The commissioners used the maintenance of effort formula to decide the amount of funding for the Board of Education. The school Superintendent Michael Martirano expressed his concern over this decision in a letter, stating that dozens of jobs could be lost and all school employees will need to take four furlough days to comply with the budget numbers calculated by the commissioners.

The commissioners will revisit their budget proposal after the public hearing in April. To read the full article about the St. Mary’s County budget, please click here.

To read MACo’s prior coverage of the St. Mary’s County budget, please click here.