Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler criticized County Executive Bob Cassilly after Cassilly posted a budget video on Facebook, saying that the sheriff’s office has not requested a large increase in funding, as Cassilly asserted.

Gahler said he sent a needs assessment to the county, not a funding request.

“I have known that for the past 10 years I have written these needs assessments that they aren’t going to be fully funded — only [Cassilly] wants to take these numbers out to the public and say, ‘Woe is me,’” Gahler said. “The needs don’t go away just because he doesn’t fund them.”

Cassilly’s video was posted to the Harford County government’s Facebook page on Oct. 11. Cassilly said in the video that the “sheriff and the [schools] superintendent have told us they will be requesting a combined increase of about $80 million” and that the only way to pay for the increase will be to increase property taxes by 20%.

Cassilly explained that he would not increase taxes and instead, called on the sheriff and the school system to align with the county’s current fiscal realities, which are highlighted by low state and county revenue growth.

“You cannot continue to grow like revenues are rocking and rolling when they are not,” Cassilly said. “We do not put out these videos to pick fights, we put these out to try to make people start adjusting their thinking to the financial realities.”

Gahler argues that his needs assessment outlines additional positions that would be needed for the sheriff’s office to achieve optimal performance without straining current resources.

“The needs assessment outlines what the sheriff’s office needs in an ideal world to be optimal in the performance of our job and the compensation of our employees,” Gahler said. “Not with the belief that everything is going to be funded.”

Part of Gahler’s needs assessment for fiscal 2026 is a personnel funding request of more than 70 positions — 24 of which are patrol deputies. Gahler gives an extensive explanation about why the sheriff’s office would need the additional personnel, what they would cost and how the department would use them.

“I see it as my duty to fully inform him of what this office needs in a best-case scenario and his job is to decide,” Gahler said. “But he doesn’t do that. He just launched an attack on Facebook.”

Gahler said the needs assessment is a starting point for the county executive to understand what policing needs are. Then he and Cassilly can work cooperatively to identify which needs are financially feasible.

“But Bob Cassilly does not work cooperatively with anybody,” Gahler said. “Instead of coming back and having the conversations of what do we need and we can live without, he just wants to run out and pass his rhetoric along attacking me and the men and women of law enforcement.”

According to county treasurer Robert Sandlass, roughly 65% of the county’s annual budget is allocated to Harford County Public Schools, the Harford County Sheriff’s Office and the Harford County State’s Attorney’s Office.

Each of the three entities creates its own budget with priorities, salaries and expenditures. Cassilly said each of the three — specifically the school system and the sheriff — need to do a better job “finding efficiencies” and “cutting costs” to better fit the current economic climate of the county.

“Even when I am at my best of stretching efficiencies, I can only do that for about 35% of my budget,” Cassilly said. “I need the other 65% to look at the budget I am looking at because these are lean times, because that is where the economy is right now. It is not the time for growing expenses.”

Gahler’s needs assessment outlines the need for additional positions as well as an increase in the wage package for current employees. Cassilly said he favors funding the $11 million wage package over the additional positions.

“I am committed to making sure that our deputies receive a good salary package because they do a tough job and they do it well,” Cassilly said. “But I cannot do that and add in 98 new positions because if I hire the 98 new positions, I can’t take care of the people I have.”

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