For years, our community in Perryman has been fighting against unchecked industrial development, with much of our concern centered on the Perryman wellfield. Over the past decade, more than 10 million square feet of industrial development has been added to the Perryman Peninsula, where the wellfield is located, further stressing our environmental resources. This critical source of drinking water, which supplies 30% of Harford County’s residents, is under threat from contaminants originating from Aberdeen Proving Ground and outdated studies that fail to reflect current conditions.

The studies in question include the Perryman Wellfield Study, last updated in 2000, the Bush River Watershed Characterization, last revised in 2002, and the 1997 Hydrogeology Report that documented significant contamination risks, including elevated levels of nitrate and trichloroethene in the water supply. These studies are now over two decades old, yet they continue to serve as the basis for decisions about water safety and land use. Given the changes in environmental conditions and industrial activities over the past 20 years, it is imperative that these studies be redone to ensure the safety of our water supply.

Despite assurances from the county executive in December 2023 that a new study of the Perryman wellfield had been authorized, we have yet to see any evidence that this study is moving forward. The absence of updated, independent studies is particularly concerning given the documented health risks associated with PFAS exposure, including an increased risk of cancer.

Harford County currently ranks first in Maryland for breast cancer rates among women, according to the state health department, and the Perryman area has some of the highest rates of cancer in the county. It is past time for our county to take seriously the potential link between these alarming health statistics and the quality of our water. The Environmental Protection Agency’s new regulations on PFAS provide a clear mandate: we must act now to protect our water and, by extension, our health.

The students at Harford Technical High School and Fallston High School should not have to bring bottled water to school to avoid exposure to toxic chemicals. Likewise, 30% of Harford County residents, including those in Perryman, should not have to worry about contaminated drinking water. The entire county is at risk, and it’s crucial that we act to protect our children and our communities before more harm is done.

Ron Stuchinski
Perryman

The late Mac Mathias, a senator for 18 years, was a founder of the Chesapeake Bay restoration effort; Rogers C.B. Morton was a congressman from the Eastern Shore, a robust advocate for the bay who later served as the U.S. Secretary of the Interior; and Wayne Gilchrest, who represented the shore in Congress from 1991 to 2009, remained steadfast in support of environmental regulations even as his party fought them nationally and denied climate change.

Indeed, the Republican Party once championed conservation (see Roosevelt, Teddy) and environmental protection (see Nixon, Richard).

Starting in the Reagan era, however, Republicans reversed course and fought, in Congress and courts, what they considered anti-business government overreach. Larry Hogan, a big Reagan fan and former Maryland governor now running for the U.S. Senate, is sure to boast about his environmental record, but he’s also the guy who mocked as a “rain tax” the state’s mandate to deal with polluting stormwater runoff.

And, of course, allies of Donald Trump have proposed further gutting environmental regulations and climate policy should he regain the presidency.

Given that background, it’s been interesting — actually, kinda shocking — to watch Bob Cassilly, the Republican executive of Harford County, go retro and stir memories of pro-environment Republicans of the past.

And he’s done this in a county that went for Donald Trump over Joe Biden by nearly 18,000 votes.

Since taking office less than two years ago, Cassilly has been pushing the pause button on big development. He’s argued for the redevelopment of vacant commercial and industrial sites, suggesting that he shares the common-sense views of “smart growth” progressives who want to see counties direct development in a way that avoids more sprawl.

Cassilly’s particular concern has been mega warehouses, those already on the ground and those in the pipeline. He got a six-month moratorium on new warehouse construction and a restriction on their size — both within his first year in office.

In some Maryland counties, local politicians and business owners see big warehouse construction as good economic development. The same is the case in central Pennsylvania, where the former farmlands along Interstates 81 and 78 have been marred with hundreds of massive warehouses. It’s mostly because of ecommerce, of course; online consumers have made warehouse space a primo asset within commercial real estate.

But Cassilly does not consider warehousing to be good economic development.

When we spoke last year, he said the super-size warehouses approved by his Republican predecessor were overrated. Warehouses have a big environmental impact, he said, and they don’t create all that many jobs. The pay for warehouse work, he added, is on the low end.

Instead of becoming known as “the warehouse county” along Interstate 95, Cassilly argued, Harford should be trying to attract businesses that pay higher wages for skilled or highly educated workers.

At the time, he claimed that the county had more than 2.8 million square feet of warehouse/distribution space that was unused and leasable.

He took this argument into court and into the county council.

In January 2023, less than a month after taking office, Cassilly walked into a Bel Air courtroom and got a judge to pause a warehouse development for the sake of trees. He later got the council to restrict the size of new warehouses to 250,000 square feet. That’s still big, but it’s not the 2 million square feet of warehousing a developer wanted to build on 327 green acres in a place called Abingdon Woods.

This week, Cassilly reported victory in the long Battle of Abingdon Woods.

The developer has backed off, scrapping plans for the warehouse and agreeing to stabilize lands that had been disturbed, manage stormwater on the site and plant trees. Now, any new developer who wants to build in Abingdon Woods would have to start the permitting process from scratch.

Here’s what Cassilly said in a news release about the agreement: “Harford County welcomes appropriate development that brings well-paying jobs, boosts economic activity, protects the environment and enhances our quality of life.”

The citizens who fought the mega warehouse for more than four years deserve big credit. But having a county executive on their side certainly helped — even if Cassilly doesn’t quite qualify as a full-fledged environmentalist.

It seems to me he’s pushed toward the practical, supporting development but not on the scale some wanted. After the county council voted to limit the size of warehouses, Cassilly said the new restriction “more fairly balances the property rights of landowners … with the rights of the surrounding communities.”

It will be interesting to see where all this goes from here, as pressures undoubtedly build for more development to generate more tax revenue to keep the county going.

At the same time, Harford residents have shown their willingness to engage in a long fight against development that changes the nature of their county. As a woman from Bel Air said last year: “I moved here 20 years ago, and I didn’t move here for the warehouses.”

Their next big battle will be tough: getting more wetlands and woodlands in permanent preservation. Maybe the Republican county executive could help them with that. That would be something.

Shortly after I came into office in December 2022, I was advised by our emergency service volunteers and county emergency staff that while the volunteer fire services remained viable, it was no longer feasible for the Harford County Volunteer Fire EMS Foundation to provide emergency medical services. Although the county and our EMS volunteers understood that it was only a matter of time before the county would have to take over this responsibility, it had been expected that the transition would take several years. Instead, the immense strains on the volunteers in a COVID and post-COVID world dictated that the change move forward immediately.

This rapid transition from volunteer service to paid county service required establishing 17 medic units, including hiring 108 professional paramedics/EMTs, to respond 24/7 countywide. We had to quickly staff, equip and purchase ambulances, and find a way to pay for it all, in order to continue providing the high-quality care our residents expect and deserve.

Most residents are probably unaware of this massive shift in vital services, and that’s actually good news. Our goal all along has been to work closely with our public safety partners to ensure a seamless transition, and thanks to incredible teamwork by all involved that mission was accomplished. In fact, we have also been able to reduce average response times for ambulances in medical emergencies.

While all this was going on, the number of bills for service we had to process spiked as we went from having just three county ambulance crews to 17, and this led to a delay in sending bills out for payment. This was not a surprise because before bills can go out, they must be reviewed by a licensed paramedic.

Paramedics are in short supply nationwide, and we decided to place the first paramedics we were able to hire on ambulance crews instead of sitting them in offices reviewing bills. We have since been able to hire enough paramedics to work through the backlog and by the end of June all the bills will have gone out.

It is unfortunate that some elected officials have tried to politicize this temporary delay with sensationalized and highly misleading news releases and social media posts that leave out these facts. To set the record straight, the County Council’s auditor did not discover these challenges. During one of our periodic meetings with the auditor, I personally informed her of the backlog, the measures we were undertaking to resolve it, and invited her to offer any insights or suggestions.

I am proud of the dedicated professionals across my administration who worked together so successfully to meet this serious, unexpected challenge. It is most unfortunate that their hard work and dedication have attracted so little recognition. I, for one, am grateful for the incredible cooperation from our county volunteers and for the efforts of our county staff in putting 17 very high-quality medic units in service throughout Harford County and, on behalf of the citizens we serve, I thank them all.

Bob Cassilly, Harford County executive

The gunman pumped bullets into a fellow man he knew, over an altercation.  The big cats hunt and kill when they’re hungry.  Men kill when they’re angry. Human anger is a danger to self and others, and it is often fueled or preceded by nasty rhetoric and lack of reason and logic.  This incident of violence was described as isolated.  There is no joy in that.

Guns bought or stolen, guns 3D printed or assembled from ghost parts pervade America, and human anger spurred by substance abuse or bullying or sexual abuse or mental illnesses under the radar and untreated due to health gaps and social injustices too numerous to enumerate are some of the subterranean causes of the violence convulsing America. Until every man and woman commits to nonviolence across America no man or woman will be free.

Nonviolence means abjuring guns and rage.  It means embracing the language of peace and compromise.  It means refusing to settle scores.  It means what Jesus preached and Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi practiced.  It means kindness and mercy even toward those who would harm you.  It means patience in the face of folly.  It means de-escalation of tension.

The tenets of nonviolence should be taught to children in homes and schools, and that education should continue into adulthood and beyond.  Nonviolence should be a subject for credit in colleges.  It should be inculcated and practiced.  Gandhi died from a gunshot wound.  MLK the same.  Medgar Evers was shot by white supremacists.  If they could be brought back and asked if they regret not carrying guns for self-defense, I have no doubt they would say that guns are for the fearful, the bullies, the killers, the gangsters, the warriors, the hunters and the police, but guns are not for those committed to the ideal of nonviolence.

How much worse it would have been in the Harford Mall if the man who was shot also had fired his own gun or if a visitor to the mall fired off some rounds.  How much worse for the police who rushed there to put an end to the violence.  I’ve heard people say they own guns to fight government tyranny, that freedom is earned at the barrel ends of guns.  But freedom is also lost at the barrel ends of guns.

Usha Nellore, Bel Air

I knew APG was home to barrier-shattering innovations that have forged our nation’s history, guiding present-day advancements to keep pace with emerging 21st century threats. What I did not know about was the tight-knit and extraordinary community that fuels this installation.

As I reflect on my service over the last few years, I am reminded of how truly impressive the APG community is, a true hidden gem.

The continued support of Harford, Cecil and Kent counties, and the cities of Aberdeen, Edgewood, Bel Air, and Havre De Grace is nothing short of awe-inspiring. I have had the opportunity to serve all over the world and there is nothing like this area.

I am just one leader in a long list of commanders who have served here, and just as the Army goes rolling along, this area will continue to set the standard for military communities. In the few years since I first arrived, it has become evident that the local population around APG doesn’t just support our soldiers; this community understands that it is an integral part of the collective military family. The success of our teammates on APG is powered by the surrounding area.

Even before I arrived, it was clear that this patriotic group has been committed to our service members and the defense of our nation for over a century. I’m genuinely humbled to know that I may have played a small part in that.

Personally, one of the most memorable moments of my tenure here was witnessing our collective APG team joining forces to host the first ever APG Future Force and Demonstration Days for the local community. Extraordinary coordination went into setting up incredible exhibits and displays from more than 30 Army organizations, recruiting stations, a live fire event, and even a surprise homecoming.

This two-day event welcomed more than 10,000 members of the regional community onto the installation to explore the many different missions we accomplish every day. I am so incredibly grateful as I think about our efforts to connect with and educate people in this area, especially when we have been able to work with young people. The opportunity to work with and mentor the next generation of innovators is truly humbling.

With the support of our community, APG has shown time and time again just how impactful our team can be.

From the start of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the organizations on APG’s installation have worked to provide critical support for Army operations in Europe, delivering Ukraine with critical C5ISR equipment, training, and sustainment capabilities. C5ISR stands for command, control, computers, communications, and cyber-defense, as well as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

APG organizations have worked hard to establish a forward presence at the Telemaintenance Distribution Center – Ukraine to provide critical radar maintenance support. Supporting multiple radar operator and maintainer training missions by the U.S. Security Assistance Command to Ukraine soldiers.

Since 2023, the organizations of APG have supported both operational and humanitarian efforts in the Middle East.

We have continued to make strides in the cyber and electromagnetic spectrum of modern warfare. Our APG tenant organizations also have provided the vital testing and evaluation needed to prove our constant focus on providing informed equipping decisions for the Army’s soldiers and our allies.

From prospective careers to research and education opportunities, the organizations on APG offer endless possibilities.

In 2024, roughly four years after the COVID-19 pandemic affected the world we knew, APG’s medical organizations have shifted their focus from vaccine health and support to medical logistics sustainment on a transforming battlefield.

The connections between APG’s government and military organizations, industry, and small businesses ensure success at all levels, from right here in APG’s surrounding community all the way out to our brave soldiers who are deployed. Aside from our uniformed personnel, APG is home to generations of scientists, engineers, and technologists deeply rooted in the unique regional energy of Northeast Maryland.

I am more than confident that APG will remain in good hands after my upcoming retirement. I am also incredibly humbled and honored to think that I contributed to APG’s enduring legacy, even for just a few years, recognizing that the installation was here for over a hundred years before me.

My wife, Ellen, and I are now looking forward to a life after serving in uniform. While most in the community know me as the senior leader of APG, our military’s spouses serve our nation in their own way. Ellen has played a tremendous role in my leadership and subsequently the readiness and retention of APG’s forces by being my unwavering support at home. I cannot thank her enough for her steadfast commitment to APG and this community during my tenure as senior commander. We are both looking forward to reconnecting with family, but we will always have a special place in our hearts for APG and the surrounding community.

Your steadfast dedication to our installation, the invaluable partnerships you foster, and your support during my tenure as a leader are deeply appreciated. As our community continues to flourish, always remember to “Be All You Can Be.” ”

U.S. Army Major General Robert Edmonson II has served as the senior commander at Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG) since July 2021. APG is a U.S. Army facility located adjacent to Aberdeen, Harford County, Maryland, United States, with more than 21,000 Army Civilians, contractors, and military personnel working there.  It is the U.S. Army’s oldest active proving ground.

The Aegis published my May 24 letter to the editor regarding the quality of life in Harford County and the reliance of the county’s leaders on revenue from their developments, fancifully called mixed-use, as a cause for that erosion.

Mr. Ed Garono of Havre de Grace replied and made many misstatements in his reply.  He seems to have relied on the title of my letter, “Greed of developers, leaders cannot mask corrosive income disparity” for his ad hominem.  I highly doubt he read the substance of my letter.  If he had, he would have read that about the juveniles who stole a car in Edgewood and gave chase to law enforcement, I said I was angry that their parents had not supervised them.  I did not say that their violation of the law directly came from developers.

I did say though, that the county was not building enough affordable housing for the poor, for one-income families and fixed income senior citizens.  I said that these people who desperately need affordable housing are being priced out.

I also noted that Harford County did not have the infrastructure for the overcrowding and traffic congestion that would ensue from its rapid growth in unaffordable housing for many groups, except rich retirees and high income families.  I then noted such thoughtless and untrammeled development would not only degrade the environment it would cause essential workers to seek affordable housing elsewhere, much to the detriment of county residents who continue to live here.

The overcrowding would also cause a breakdown in the education infrastructure at a time of grave teacher shortage.  I said that teachers and law enforcement officers too may be priced out of affordable housing if mixed use, expensive developments continue to proliferate, built up by big named developers, some local and others national. This would set up a vicious cycle of walled off affluence versus priced out and desperate poverty, a disparity that would lead to more crime and degradation.  I also said that the rich too commit crimes as do their children and overcrowding the county, without the necessary infrastructure for folks rich or poor is not the way to go.

Mr. Garono has made my letter a blue versus red, a Democratic Party versus Republican Party partisan issue.  He says if fewer houses are built the cost of existing houses will rise.  But the issue is not only about the number of houses being built, it is also about the cost of houses being built, if the unhoused in Harford County or those waiting for affordable housing will be housed after these houses are built and if the delicate balance between nature and humans will be maintained if the types of houses being built are allowed year after year.

The housing lobby is extremely potent all over the country in places red or blue.  Oklahoma City will be getting the tallest building in America thanks to a developer from California and that city’s residents are divided about the arrival of this skyscraper in their midst.  While Mr. Garano says he went broke being a developer, developers of today are not struggling, local builders.  They are mega corporate builders, both international and national with an outsized influence on our politicians, looking avariciously for land with no stake in the places they are building up.

These folks are not going broke because they have multiple building projects in disparate places all happening simultaneously.  Like big ag and big oil there is big development.  Profit is their only motive.  Unless their feet are held to the fire by local politicians they will build willy nilly and leave.  Local politicians whose ethos is to try and balance the budget with real estate revenues are not invested in the impact of development on nature or on climate change.  They allow buildings to rise expeditiously for monies earned from real estate taxes.  Big development, knowing this ethos, enters every undeveloped and underdeveloped place in America dangling real estate taxes as a lure.

My letter was about striking a balance, between housing for the haves and the have nots, housing that will erase nature and change climate versus housing sensitive to such existential matters and

housing by local builders, a few and affordable at a time, versus housing by national builders, many and exorbitant at a time.  Mr.Garano has written a letter without context.  He uses his rebuttal to me as a venue to spew his antipathy for Democrats, liberals, blue states and blue cities.  He also suggests, although discreetly, that looking at the pictures of the thieves of Harford County is verboten because that would make one a racist.  That would only be racist if it is not recognized, realistically, that the crimes in Harford County are not the exclusive domain of any one race.

Go to the courthouse in Bel Air and view those coming in and out.  They are a diverse group of individuals, criminals and their victims, black, white and brown, male, female, non-binåry and trasgender and the only common denominator is that they’re human.

Usha Nellore, Bel Air

No indoctrination universities

It is not often that I agree with Ed Garono (“Letter got it wrong about Harford quality of life,” May 29), but I strongly support one point. No, not the one insisting that developers are my best friend. However, I do concur that parents should “not send your kids to indoctrination universities.” We have all seen the tragic results of putting elitist Ivy League graduates in positions of power. The parents of Ted Cruz, Ron DeSantis, and Donald Trump should have been warned.

Glenn Gall, Bel Air

Greedy developers and income disparity are the headline of this letter to the editor. It wouldn’t be the juvenile’s awareness that there are few consequences for getting caught stealing in Maryland or that their juvenile culture encourages bad behavior, or that these juveniles are unsupervised by parents. No, the problem couldn’t be the child’s responsibility; crime is caused by greedy developers “and the crimes these mixed-use developments promise” the writer claims.  You have to have an especially warped ideology to believe that. And don’t look at the pictures of the thieves, they will make you racist.

I noticed in the last Harford County election that we have more Democrats in leadership positions than we have had in a while.  As Maryland becomes a bluer state, we can expect the ills of blue cities will come out to the counties and as county leaders continue to allow fewer houses to be built, the cost of existing housing will continue to rise, further driving out the working class. I was a developer once, until I lost so much money on my last project, I gave it up.

The writer complains of longer wait times and high costs for home repairs. I suggest you not send your kids to indoctrination universities; send them to trade schools where they can learn a trade, make good money and build or rehab a home for themselves or others.

Ed Garono, Havre de Grace

At one level I was astounded that children were up and about, unsupervised, stealing a vehicle that they are not allowed to drive and that is not theirs, yet doing it anyway because they either did not have knowledge of the consequences or they did not care about the consequences. At  another level, I was angered that they were not supervised by their parents who are not taking that duty to heart, and they weren’t taught by the same parents to have a moral compass, emphasizing the difference between right and wrong.

In this context, I want to say the quality of life in Harford County is deteriorating and fast.  This is because county leaders have been bought out by developers,, and they see expansion of housing as their biggest source of revenue.  Every time I read about a new development in the county, new buildings, new apartments and condos, the excuse from our leaders is the demand for such development. Really? Who is demanding the growth of Harford County? Developers and people not yet here?

Developers are the best friends of our county leaders.  We have an upcoming development where Harford Mall now stands.  We have another on Bond Street in Bel Air.  Then there is the 109-acre mixed-use development off Route 543 and Creswell Road in Bel Air called “The Valley at James Run.” More trees will be dashed down for a valley where the highlights will be a nearby gas station, a Chipotle, a Starbucks and a Tropical Smoothie Cafe plus a yoga studio.

Drink up at Starbucks, you don’t have to go far if you live at the Valley at James Run, or eat up at Chipotle, then pay up at the yoga studio as you see your middle expand. If that fails to reduce your middle, there’s always Ozempic or Mounjaro. Go to the University of Maryland Endocrine clinic at Upper Chesapeake Hospital to get those two drugs and beat the eating excess so easily available within the confines of your mixed-use community, brought to you via the kindness of Ryan Homes, Chipotle and Starbucks.

Is that the insane ethos?

Funny thing about all of this busy bee housing activity: I checked out  the Havre de Grace low income housing website and read there that most apartments have waiting lists and most of those lists are closed out for years.  You tell me who needs housing, the homeless and the poor or those with moola to spend, seeking a second living quarters or a high-end property to rent to their own ilk?

The expansion of high-end housing in cities like San Francisco, Miami and New York, have outpriced even the middle class and slowly emptied those cities of essential workers like teachers, police, construction and other blue collar workers, even garbage collectors, without whom no place can run smoothly.

These workers cannot afford to live where they work. They are in high demand and the rich folks who priced them out of decent and affordable housing cannot find them for emergency repairs.  Also, in these cities the number of homeless have increased as have open air drug markets and crime.

The wait times are long to find a good plumber or a good repairman or roofer and the cost of hiring one is exorbitant in these premier American cities.  The rich ultimately do pay the price in labor costs for pricing essential workers out of home and hearth, and they richly deserve that fate.  That said, American counties, like Harford County, have misplaced values, when it comes to housing and development and the buzz words “mixed-use housing” is part of their misplaced values because it entails expansion of concrete at the expense of oxygen-producing trees and expansion of housing without any thought given to essential workers who are kept deliberately underpaid so  that they cannot afford the expanded housing.

Coming back to the minors who stole cars in Edgewood and gave a chase to law enforcement, do the Bel Air Police and the sheriff’s department have the manpower to cope with the traffic infractions and the crimes that these mixed-use developments promise or does the county leadership think that high-end luxury apartments will inoculate against crime and degradation?

Criminal tendencies hide within luxury apartments, too, as do drug use and family dysfunctions that can lead to crimes, keeping our law enforcement officers overworked and underpaid.

Despite the increase in real estate revenue the county leaders drool over, I am sure year after year we’ll hear of budget shortfalls and not enough money for quality-of-life issues, like education, road repairs, traffic calming and pay increases for sheriff’s deputies and teachers.

I weep for the natural beauty of Harford County, gone to seed, lost to greed as I also weep for the single-income families and retirees living on a fixed income, who are increasingly out of luck when it comes to affordable housing, not just in cities, but in suburbs across America.

Usha Nellore, Bel Air

Good news from Annapolis: The Maryland House of Delegates and state Senate passed HB 1230, the Tianeptine Consumer Protection Act, with strong bipartisan support.  Kudos again to our Harford delegates Steve Johnson and Teresa Reilly for being original co-sponsors of the bill.

Gov. Wes Moore signed the bill on April 25 as an “emergency measure,” meaning this new law is now in effect.

The law is perfectly clear.  It is now illegal in Maryland for any retailer (smoke shop, convenience store, gas station) to distribute, sell, expose for sale, or advertise for sale any tianeptine product to any individual of any age.  This is a modest but noteworthy improvement in our county’s efforts to reduce our serious drug problem.

Epilogue: Earlier this year, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration issued a public safety alert on the dangers and addictive nature of tianeptine.  The FDA sent its alert to retailers nationwide, urging them to stop selling Neptune’s Fix and other tianeptine-containing products.

Our new law goes beyond urging. It’s now illegal in Maryland.  Our health department may want to consider sending a similar letter to retailers and producing public awareness warnings for families, health care providers, businesses, and the general public.

Don Mathis, Havre de Grace

First, my administration and the County Council want to do our best for the citizens of Harford County.

The entities we fund, including public schools, the sheriff’s office, libraries, etc., have requested a total of $66 million in addition to the amount in our budget.

We simply do not have these funds; they would have to be moved from other areas.

For perspective, please consider what it would mean if we were to fully fund the total $40 million increase requested by the school system alone.

The following would be eliminated:

• The Department of Parks & Recreation, including activity centers
• The Department of Housing & Community Services, including all senior centers
• All school resource officers and  crossing guards
• County funding to the volunteer fire companies
• The Department of Economic Development, including agricultural services and tourism as well as  county funding for soil conservation and agricultural extension services

To fund the total $66 million increase requested by all agencies would eliminate all of these and more; or  the County Council would have to raise property taxes by $500 per year for the average homeowner.

None of this is necessary, and I will not raise taxes to balance this budget.

Harford County public schools have accumulated unspent taxpayer funds they can use as a bridge during these difficult economic times. In fact, they have more than enough and would still have $5 million to $15 million left over.

We do not recommend the school system use fund balance alone. Rather, we urge it to find efficiencies that don’t significantly affect the classroom and reset spending so we can fund reasonable increases moving forward.

To those who say we should raid our own assigned fund balance – funds set aside to meet requirements and future needs – please consider the following two points:

First, we need assigned reserves because our budget commits funds to outside agencies based on future revenues. This revenue is volatile and always at risk of falling short, especially in uncertain times. This also is why we adhere to fiscally responsible estimates. In fact, if we had gone along with rosier estimates urged by some last year, we may have had to claw back funds from the school system and other entities. This is exactly what happened under a prior administration during the Great Recession.

Second, Harford County government alone is responsible for the debt of the entities we fund. When we sell bonds to pay for capital projects like schools and libraries, our AAA bond rating allows us to borrow money at lower interest rates. To maintain our AAA rating, the rating agencies recommend 20% of our revenues be held in reserve. This is not an arbitrary measure. It reflects the real-life experiences of 3,143 counties across the country. Tapping into that now would risk our top rating, which would increase project costs and limit the number of projects we can fund.

In closing, we should not shift our responsibility onto future generations by draining our fund balance or raising taxes. Instead, county government and the public entities we fund should continue working together, through these fiscal ups and downs, united for the Harford County citizens we serve.

Robert G. Cassilly, a Republican, is the Harford County executive