Council Committees Meet on April 29

The Montgomery County Council’s Health and Human Services (HHS) Committee will hold a worksession at 9:30 a.m. on April 29 on the funding requested in Fiscal Year 2014 by the county’s Arts and Humanities Council. The committee also will discuss community grants for the next fiscal year. The worksessions are part of the Council’s review of County Executive Isiah Leggett’s recommended FY14 operating budget.

In April and May, the Council will review the Executive’s recommended budget as it works toward adopting the FY14 County operating budget in late May. The budget will go into effect on July 1.

The Health and Human Services Committee, which is chaired by George Leventhal and includes Councilmembers Nancy Navarro and Craig Rice, will meet in the Third Floor Conference Room of the Council Office Building at 100 Maryland Ave. in Rockville. The meeting will be televised live by County Cable Montgomery (CCM—Cable Channel 6 on Comcast and RCN, Channel 30 on Verizon). The broadcast also will be streamed through the County Web site at www.montgomerycountymd.gov.

The Arts and Humanities Council is the County’s designated local arts and humanities agency. Its FY14 budget includes general operating support grants to arts and humanities organizations, program grants to organizations not receiving general operating support and project grants to individuals.

The County Executive recommended an increase for the Arts and Humanities Council in FY14 of 3.6 percent above the approved budget in FY13. The recommended budget of $3.5 million is still approximately $600,000 below the FY08 budget—not including funding for Public Arts Trust Maintenance. The Arts and Humanities Council has asked that an additional $500,000 be added to its budget for the next fiscal year—a request that will be addressed by the committee.

The HHS Committee also will discuss proposed community grants.

At 9:30 a.m. in the Seventh Floor Hearing Room, the Public Safety Committee, which is chaired by Phil Andrews and includes Councilmembers Roger Berliner and Marc Elrich, will continue its discussions of the FY14 budget of the Police Department. The worksession will include a discussion of the delayed new 2nd District Police Station in the Bethesda Central Business District.

At 2 p.m., the Planning, Housing and Economic Development (PHED) Committee, which is chaired by Nancy Floreen and includes Councilmembers Elrich and Leventhal, will continue its reviews of the budget requests of Park and Planning and the Department of Recreation. The committee previously asked the Department of Recreation and the Parks Department to development a single-entry registration system for all programs and classes operated by the two departments. The committee will be updated on the status of creating that system.

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