In trimming the proposed county budget by $6.8 million, Anne Arundel's top officials agreed to scale back two public safety projects, amid a variety of minor cuts elsewhere in the budget.
The $895 million operating budget and $108.5 million capital budget are the county's spending plans for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. The savings identified last week will be used as a cushion against additional cuts in state funding, which are expected in the coming weeks.
County Executive Janet S. Owens had proposed spending $420,000 next fiscal year to buy land for a new Lake Shore Fire Station in Pasadena. The nearly 60-year-old station is owned by a volunteer fire company but also is used by career firefighters. Volunteers and the firefighters union agree that the building has problems, though they disagree about the severity of the problems.
The station sits in Councilman Ronald C. Dillon Jr.'s district. Dillon said he pushed to remove the money from the budget because the price tag for a new station was more than $4.8 million. Dillon said the council wants to delay construction until it can curtail the cost. Baltimore County has built stations for less than $2 million, he said.
In its place, the council and Owens agreed to spend $90,000 for repairs, Dillon said. He added that he hopes a new station can be built by the 2006-2007 fiscal year.
The council and Owens also agreed to cut next year's spending on a new public-safety communications system to $3.9 million. Owens had proposed spending $5.1 million.
In past years, Owens' administration sought - and the council approved - $15 million to upgrade the radio system that police and firefighters use to communicate. The system has several dead spots around the county where radios don't work.
This year, the administration said the system had a more serious problem than expected with cell phone interference and would require $20 million in additional fixes, including $5.1 million this year.
Dillon said the $1.2 million spending cut will not delay the project. He said it merely pushes back funding that wouldn't have been used until the 2004-2005 fiscal year.
