Although Harford County Executive Bob Cassilly has not yet proposed a county budget for fiscal 2027, disagreement is already brewing.

Social media videos from Cassilly and Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler outline conflicting calculations of funding growth.

Cassilly and Gahler, both Republicans, are running for reelection this year.

The county executive released a video last week outlining the budget process, a walk-up to a public hearing on his budget proposal scheduled for next week. In another video, Gahler responded, disputing Cassilly’s breakdown of budget figures and urging the county executive to “be honest.”

Cassilly must present his proposal to the Harford County Council by April 15, where it will undergo deliberations and further public hearings before it must be adopted in June.

County residents are invited to provide their input on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at North Harford High School. They may submit their comments via email to igovharford@harfordcountymd.gov, or by mail to 220 S. Main St., Bel Air, MD 21014.

Disagreements between Cassilly and the sheriff have become a fixture of recent budget cycles.

Each year since Cassilly took office in 2022, Gahler has criticized him for his funding choices regarding the sheriff’s office and others have criticized his decision on funding for Harford County Public Schools.

Cassilly spoke about both directly in the social media video last week, saying that about 75% of the county’s annual budget goes toward public safety and education, which he named as the county’s top two priorities.

“I highly value the work our teachers and law enforcement do, and I want to be clear that their funding will continue to grow,” Cassilly said.

Cassilly said that since he took office, he has increased funding for the sheriff’s office by 17% and the school system by 8.2%. He said when it came to the portion of the budget that funds the county government, it increased by only 1%.

But Gahler disputed the county executive’s calculation, claiming Cassilly left out the 52% increase in funding for the county government’s Department of Emergency Services.

“Does this 1% hold the same weight when you realize that he’s excluding the 52% in the Department of Emergency Services in the past three years?” Gahler said. “That’s on par with someone telling you they had a healthy salad for dinner but deciding to exclude everything else, like the bread and butter, entire pan of lasagna and a hot fudge sundae.”

Gahler said the 52% increase raises the county government’s funding share from 1% since 2022 to about 8.5%.

Cassilly has also gone back and forth with the county’s school system ahead of putting together his budget proposal. He said in a news release following the school district’s official fiscal 2027 budget request that the request was not in line with an agreement Cassilly said he struck with the school system’s former Superintendent Sean Bulson.

This year, Cassilly said the agreed-upon funding increase for the school system would be about $23 million. However, Harford County Public Schools requested a funding increase of about $54 million, which Cassilly said would require either a reduction in county services or an increase in taxes.

Have a news tip? Contact Matt Hubbard at mhubbard@baltsun.com, 443-651-0101 or @mthubb on X.