The Carroll County Commissioners recently approved the county’s fiscal 2015 operating and capital budgets.  The adopted budget includes one-time 3% bonuses for all of the public school system’s employees, pay increases for sheriff’s employees, tax reductions and more money to nonprofits.

As reported by the Carroll County Times:

The adopted budget includes $165.3 million for public schools, $1.5 million for pay raises for Carroll County Sheriff’s Office employees, a one-time-only county property tax rebate, a lowered local income tax rate and increased funding for nonprofits.

…

The board of commissioners decided to use a combination of one-time surplus funds from FY13 and ongoing money to cover $1.5 million worth of pay increases for the sheriff’s office over the next three years. The sheriff’s office has proposed implementing a career ladder plan that would give sheriff’s employees ongoing incremental pay increases every three years.

…

With the passage of the FY15 budget, this five-member board of commissioners has lowered taxes every year it has been in office.

The budget includes giving a one-time-only county property tax rebate of 1 cent per $100 of assessed value to property owners and lowering the local income tax or “piggyback tax” from 3.04 percent to 3.03 percent. The cost to the county to offer the tax rebate and cut totals $2.2 million.

…

Nonprofits partially or completely funded by the county will receive a 1.5 percent increase in funding in FY15. The commissioners voted 3-2 to allocate $118,000 of additional money for the nine nonprofits.