Harford County, Maryland FY 24 Proposed Operating Budget

The Committee also reviewed the FY 2023 General Fund Budget as a necessary step in carrying out its charge to recommend a FY 2024 spending level. It was necessary to adjust the FY 2023 General Fund Budget to reflect the reduction of the appropriated fund balance and other one-time revenues equal to $89.6 million. Our approach has been to estimate annual recurring revenue; therefore, we are continuing the historical adjustment to exclude non-recurring sources of funds. This adjustment yielded an Adjusted FY 2023 General Fund Budget of $663.0 million. C. Debt Authorization The Committee has reviewed the County's Debt Management Policy dated April 13, 2010. The Debt Management Policy includes a discussion of strategic capital planning and sets overall objectives for issuance of debt and debt service loads. The Committee concurs in those objectives and the reasoning set forth in the Debt Management Policy and considers the objectives both reasonable and conservative. The Committee seeks to offer the County some guidance on this topic, and our general impressions as to the level of debt contemplated by the plan. We do not intend to give advice to the County on the highly technical subject of debt issuance and structure. As detailed in the policy, the County will engage qualified financial advisors, bond counsel, and bond underwriters to give them advice on the issuance and structure of the County’s debt. The Committee reviewed the Debt Affordability Ratios provided by the Debt Management Policy and their impact on the expected debt level in FY 2023 Budgeted and FY 2024 Projected: · The County aims to maintain a level of debt not to exceed $2,500 per capita. Projected FY 2023 level is expected to be $1,882 and $1,889 for FY 2024. · The County aims to maintain a debt level under 2.3% of the full cash value of assessable property in the County. Projected level for both FY 2023 and FY 2024 is 1.6%. · The County aims to have debt service not exceed 10.0% of budgeted general fund expenditures. Projected FY 2023 level is 7.5% and 7.4% for FY 2024.

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