Sussex County Administrator David Baker said at the July 15 county council meeting that the changes to the state’s Grant-in-Aid bill, the ones that resulted in the $1.4 million reduction in funding for the county’s paramedic program, will not go into effect until Fiscal Year 2010. The changes would probably have to be passed by the next legislature, Baker said.
The cut is a reduction from 40 to 30 percent funding from the state. At 24 percent, the paramedic program represented the largest percent of the county’s General Fund and Community Development expenditures. The county had budgeted $23 million for public safety programs in its FY 2009 budget, with $13.6 million going to paramedics.
The county had agreed to fund $300,000 or 100 percent of the contract for reimbursement for dog control to Kent County SPCA, which administers dog control for Sussex, and to contribute $250,000 for open space funding to help the state with its budget shortfall. But they were not expecting this.
“We were completely unaware of this,” Baker said. “We didn’t receive a copy until after it had passed.”
The additional $1.4 million the county will now be responsible for puts an additional strain on taxpayers. It’s not something Sussex can afford to do without, especially since the county saw a 39 percent increase in EMS service calls from 2002 to 2007, with nearly 17,000 calls received last year.
In other business:
• Assistant to the Administrator Hal Godwin announced that two bills the county was supporting passed June 30. One would allow the county to build a wastewater treatment plant outside the boundaries of a sewer district and the other would allow them to pass their own referendums for public infrastructure.
• For the sixth year in a row, the county earned the Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting for its comprehensive annual financial report for fiscal year 2007.
• Council approved a five-year lease renewal for the Center for the Inland Bays, at a cost of $1 per year. CIB is a nonprofit National Estuary Program dedicated to the restoration and protection of Delaware’s Inland Bays.
• The First State Manufactured Housing Association donated $3,000 at the July 22 meeting for the removal of abandoned manufactured homes in the county. Since the program began in 2001, 120 homes have been removed.
• Employee of the Quarter was David Elliott, a mechanic in Buildings and Grounds since 2006.
SUSSEX COUNTY —
