Ocean City Mayor Rick Meehan said the town officials are seeking more unrestricted grant funds, as well as continued support of funding EMS service in West Ocean City, from Worcester County in the coming fiscal year.
Courtesy photo
By Charlene Sharpe, Associate Editor
The Town of Ocean City wants more money from Worcester County in the coming fiscal year.
Ocean City Mayor Rick Meehan said town officials are seeking more unrestricted grant funds for continued support of funding EMS service in West Ocean City, and a share of the cost of buying a digital x-ray system for the Ocean City Bomb Squad.
“We believe all the requests are reasonable and important,” Meehan said.
Representatives of each of the county’s municipalities and Ocean Pines presented annual grant requests to the Worcester County Commissioners last week. Meehan told the commissioners the resort was asking for $198,428 more than last year.
“What we’re asking for is a 7.4% increase,” he said. “This will actually cover the CPI increases that have occurred over the last two years. We also think that probably this would be a good way to benchmark increases of this grant in the future. We’re hoping that would be considered.”
Meehan thanked the commissioners for working with the town to develop a formula to support funding West Ocean City EMS service. He asked the county to apply the formula again in the coming budget year, as providing EMS service to the West Ocean City area cost $823,794 over and above grants received and revenues collected.
“The calls for service in West Ocean City are now 22% of our total EMS calls,” Meehan said.
Meehan also asked that the county share the cost of a new $65,000 digital x-ray system for the bomb squad. He said the squad provides services to Ocean City and Worcester County and that both jurisdictions supported it in the past.
“Maybe there’s more ways we could share costs that would benefit both of us,” Meehan said.
The commissioners last week also heard grant requests from Ocean Pines, Snow Hill, Berlin and Pocomoke.
Pocomoke Mayor Todd Nock presented a request for $540,750, while Snow Hill Mayor Michael Pruitt asked for $500,000.
The Town of Berlin also submitted a request for $500,000, which would represent a 7.5% increase over what the town received during the last fiscal year.
“We are requesting an increase this year with the assessable base growing for the county and town,” Mayor Zack Tyndall said.
He added that the town was also asking for $10,000 to assist with quarterly promotional videos for the downtown business district. He said there were 270 businesses in town and during monthly merchant meetings representatives asked for increased marketing efforts.
Tyndall also requested a reimbursement of $16,000 for road and sidewalk improvements made to Seahawk Road.