OPA Board opposes county’s proposal

Editor,

(The following letter was sent to the Worcester County Commissioners with a copy sent to this newspaper for publication.)

This letter is in response to the FY2026 budget draft that was put forward for the Water/Wastewater Enterprise Funds during your Commissioners’ meeting on Tuesday, March 18th. We find your proposal to burden all 11 Water/Wastewater Service Area ratepayers with $2,188,000 in shortfalls accumulated over many years to be unfair.

The Ocean Pines Service Area only contributed $116,699 to the shortfalls. The approval of the budget put forward for the upcoming fiscal year would penalize rate payers in the Ocean Pines Service Area in the amount of $2,021,301. ($2.188,000 in total debts – $116,699 in actual Ocean Pines Service Area shortfalls) and would set a precedent for further financial hardship of the residents of Ocean Pines.

Your proposal obligates Ocean Pines Service Area ratepayers to pay 55.6% (10,000 Ocean Pines Service Area ratepayers / 18,000 countywide ratepayers) of a debt that is mostly not associated with the Ocean Pines Water/Wastewater Service Area. It appears that your intention is to evade public attention from the issues connected to the misappropriation of enterprise funds within your finance office:

• Contrary to county financial protocols, reports are that disbursements were being made absent of approval or oversight by the County Commissioners.
• These financial inconsistencies were discovered in February 2024 during the implementation of new budgeting procedures and not as a result of either an internal or external financial audit.
• No personnel have been held accountable for the financial inconsistencies within the Enterprise Funds operations.
• The plan brought forward to resolve the Enterprise Funds debt is inconsistent with the county code that defines 11 Water/Wastewater service areas within Worcester County to be self-sustaining, meaning income should equal expenses.

Ocean Pines rate payers have a responsibility to pay for the operations of our system that provided us with clean water and effluent processing and nothing more. The intentions of the FY2026 budget for Water/Wastewater Enterprise Funds raise considerable concern among the Ocean Pines Service Area rate payers.

The Ocean Pines Association Board of Directors request that Ocean Pines be held harmless from the debts of all other Water/Wastewater Service Areas.

Ocean Pines Association Board of Directors