What’s Eating Montgomery County?
By Silver Springer • May 19th, 2008 • Category: Government and Politics
I found this post very interesting and have been meaning to compile the data myself but here it is…it shows several counties around the United States that are of similar size in population to Montgomery County and their respective budgets.
To be fair some of these don’t include the county’s school budget (I believe Fairfax County does). So if we subtract $2.1 billion, which is the approximate Montgomery County school budget for FY09 we are left with a budget of about $2.2 billion for Montgomery County.
I find the similarities between Montgomery County and Westchester County in particular interesting. Westchester County is a County in Metro New York City and home to IBM, Pepsico, Snapple and others. The county seat White Plains has an urban core like a mid-size city with 40 story buildings and a Ritz Carlton Hotel under construction. Ironically Ritz Carlton’s headquarters is in Montgomery County but there are no Ritz Carlton Hotels in the State of Maryland (thank you Marriott).
How does Montgomery’s $4.3 BILLION budget compare to other United State municipalities with similar populations?
Fulton County, GA
pop: 960,009
2008 budget: $671,469,078
county seat: Atlanta
square miles: 535Westchester County, NY
pop: 949,355
2008 budget: $1,780,000,000
County seat: White Plains
square miles: 500Pima County, AZ
pop: 946,362
2008 budget: $1,239,133,403
county seat: Tuscon
square miles: 9,189DuPage County, IL
pop: 932,670
2008 budget: $375,881,786
County seat: Wheaton
square miles: 337Montgomery County, MD
pop: 932,131
proposed 2009 budget: $4,300,000,000
County seat: Rockville
Square miles: 507Fairfax County, VA
pop: 1,077,000
approved 2009 budget: $3,350,000,000
county seat: Fairfax
square miles: 407Pinellas County, FL
Pop: 924,413
2008 budget: $730,105,090
County seat: Clearwater
square miles: 608Erie County, NY
pop: 921,390
2008 budget: $1,453,151,181
County seat: Buffalo
square miles: 1,227Travis County, TX
pop: 921,006
2008 budget: $663,650,517
County seat: Austin
Square miles: 1,022Milwaukee County, WI
Pop: 915,097
2008 budget: $1,300,000,000
County Seat: Milwaukee
Square miles: 1,190sources:
Wikipedia for population and sq mi, and each county’s proprietary website for $$$ info
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I don’t know specifically the counties you’re talking about, but I do know that compared to NJ at least (and I think probably NY too) this is apples to oranges. When I first moved to MoCo I was shocked at how much county government did. In NJ, county gov’t is a joke. Everything is municipalties. There is no “unincorporated land” the way there is in maryland. Local police are municipal, school districts are municipal, and the list of services that MoCo provides that municipalities provide elsewhere goes on and on. At least in NJ, the county gov’t provides little beyond some park services, a sheriff’s office that provides some functions like a bomb squad that municipalties can’t justify on their own, etc.. Nowhere near the number of services that MoCo provides because of unincorporated places like SS and Bethesda that house a huge majority of the population but have no municipal services.
[quote comment="4381"]I don’t know specifically the counties you’re talking about, but I do know that compared to NJ at least (and I think probably NY too) this is apples to oranges. When I first moved to MoCo I was shocked at how much county government did. In NJ, county gov’t is a joke. Everything is municipalties. There is no “unincorporated land” the way there is in maryland. Local police are municipal, school districts are municipal, and the list of services that MoCo provides that municipalities provide elsewhere goes on and on.
At least in NJ, the county gov’t provides little beyond some park services, a sheriff’s office that provides some functions like a bomb squad that municipalties can’t justify on their own, etc.. Nowhere near the number of services that MoCo provides because of unincorporated places like SS and Bethesda that house a huge majority of the population but have no municipal services.[/quote]
This is true but what explains places like Fairfax County with a larger population and more jobs? Their land-use is terrible but it doesn’t take public monies to dictate that. I can say is that Fairfax roads suck so maybe that’s part of the difference.
I still think Montgomery County spends too much. The council and executive didn’t go deep enough with the budget cuts.
What if you eliminate schools from the equation? Half the Montgomery budget is schools. Where I’m from, independent school districts (with their own taxing authority) provide all the school services. Does Westchester provide education? If not then its budget is then comparable to Montgomery’s.
I see where you are going but I think you could probably explain this all through the fact that there are few municipal governments in the County. Counties usually have city budgets to provide most of the services.
NJ comparisons are not fair becuase it is townships and not county governments that are the backbone of local government. Our closest comparisons are Fairfax County and PG or Baltimore County. Both PG and BaltiCo are similar to Montgomery in population but have lower real estate vales and a smaller job base as well as much more limited offerings in terms of just about every government program. Fairfax County, which has a higher population as well as real estate tax base than Montgomery has a more limited form of government than Montgomery. VDOT, for instance, owns and maintains all or most Virginia roads. In Montgomery that falls to the County-level DPWT. The State of Virginia also administers NVCC while MC is a county function. Fairfax does have a larger schools budget than Montgomery and has a larger school system. Both spend about the same per student and pay teachers about the same. On the other hand Montgomery runs a $200 million liquor business that boost budget numbers as well as a very large bus fleet, and among others, a very unique solid waste collection scheme. The point is that direct comparisons are difficult to come by.
You cannot go about one day without seeing a MoCo fleet vehicle, constuction project, or other county crew, no matter what part of the county you are in. That is the scope of county government. All of these functions are necessary, but that does not mean that the county cannot have the courage to cut back in tough times.
I’ll just add that most counties, at least in our area, spend about 50% of their budget on schools. Less developed counties may spend in excess of 50%. I don’t think Montgomery’s 48% is unreasonable. what is unreasonable that 80% of that $4.3 billion is going towards salaries. When the County is the largest employer in the county with excess of 20,000 employees, it seems as if in today’s technology economy more functions could be done with less personel.