Calvert County Commissioners recently adopted their $232.5 million fiscal 2014 budget, which maintains tax rates and provides for employee salary increases.  As reported by Southern Maryland Newspapers Online:

The adopted budget doesn’t include any tax rate increases and is a $7.6 million increase over fiscal 2013’s adopted budget. Education will receive 51.6 percent of the county’s total expenditures, which includes pensions and debt service, followed by 11.7 percent for public safety and 8.4 percent for other post-employment benefits, pensions and insurance for county employees.

Fiscal ’14 allocates $109 million for Calvert County Public Schools, not including $3.6 million for teacher pensions that the county is forward-funding in fiscal 2013. The board of education originally requested $115 million, including the teacher pensions.

Also included in the budget is $1.5 million for COLAs and step increases for county employees, equal to a 2.1 percent step increase with a 1 percent COLA factored in — the first since fiscal 2009.