The St. Mary’s County Commissioners will only send nine of the eleven legislative proposals presented at a recent public hearing to the county delegation. During a voting session Tuesday the commissioners, on a 5-0 vote rejected a proposal to increase the state’s attorney’s salary and on a 3-2 vote rejected a proposal to allow homeowners with working wells or septic systems to opt out of hooking up to central systems.
The proposal from County Attorney George Sparling would have pegged the state’s attorney’s salary to 100 percent of that of a circuit court judge. Currently it is 90 percent of a district court judge’s salary. Currently the salary is $114,526. Under Sparlings proposal it would have risen to $154,433 on July 1, 2015.
Several of the members of the legislative delegation expressed concern about the proposal at the hearing on November 20. “I am choking on this,” said Del Anthony O’Donnell (R: 29C).
At the voting session on Tuesday, Commissioner Daniel Morris (R: 2nd) presented an alternate plan to remove the state’s attorney’s salary from discussion, but retain two other parts of Sparling’s proposal: to bring the deputy and assistant state’s attorneys under the county’s salary structure and make the investigators in the state’s attorney’s office serve at the pleasure of the state’s attorney.
Commissioner Lawrence Jarboe (R: 3rd) expressed concern about the 11th hour nature of the Morris proposal and the fact that the legislators hadn’t had a chance to hear it and respond. The idea was defeated 4-1, but the commissioners left open the opportunity for Morris to present the idea at a later date for discussion and possibly a separate request to the legislators.
The other item rejected by the commissioners was suggested by Commissioner Jarboe. He felt homeowners with working wells or septic systems should not be required to hookup to a central system when it passed by their land. He said the extra cost was an unnecessary burden on homeowners. Commissioner Morris strongly supported Jarboe when the idea was raised and the two commissioners supported it during the vote. At the voting session Morris said of the hookup policy, “It disregards public rights.”
But Commissioner Cynthia Jones (R: 1st) noted that an ad-hoc committee was looking at the issue and they should be given an opportunity to report back.
Commissioner Todd Morgan (R: 4th) said the Metropolitan Commission (MetCom) had the right to know in advance how many people would hook up in order to set rates. That was an argument presented by MetCom Executive Director Jacquelyn Meiser at the public hearing.
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