Political News: County Budget Moves Forward as Howard Delegation Celebrates Wins, Losses

By George Berkheimer

The 2008 legislative session of the Maryland General Assembly wrapped up in April, bringing victories as well as defeats for members of the Howard County delegation. It was, in the words of Del. Gail Bates (R-9A), "a very different session," following closely behind a very contentious special session that was called to address looming shortfalls in the state's proposed fiscal 2009 budget.
"It was a challenge doing the budget this year," Bates said, observing that no other state has raised corporate, income and sales taxes at the same time, as was done in Maryland last fall. "I'm concerned that we may be dealing with additional write-downs if revenues don't come in as fast or as well as people hope they do."
Del. Liz Bobo (D-12B) was dismayed to see the Chesapeake Bay cleanup fund cut from $50 million to $25 million this year. Nevertheless, the Environmental Matters Committee she chairs was able to pass two major environmental bills: the Critical Areas Reform bill and the Chesapeake Bay 2010 Trust Fund. While Howard County won't be affected by the first bill, it stands to benefit from the 2010 Fund, which was set up to help clean up rivers and streams.
Both Bates and Bobo said they were pleased to see the repeal of the so-called Tech Tax on computer services. "I'm not happy with the way we did it, though," Bates said. "It could have been done without imposing an additional tax, but that was not the will of the leadership, apparently."

Tech Tax and Transparency
The tech tax represented $200 million in annual revenue. According to Del. Warren Miller (R-9A), there were ample opportunities to cut a corresponding amount from the governor's budget, but instead the figure "was turned into a $200 million bad penny that keeps getting passed from one group to another."
The legislature's solution was to create a new income tax bracket that applies to people earning more than $1 million a year.
"At least 25% of the people being hit with this new tax are small business owners," said Sen. Allan Kittleman (R-9). "It's not a good thing to do, especially in a downturn of the economy. If only 5% of these owners decide to live in another state for six months and one day out of the year to avoid paying taxes - and a lot of them already own some other type of property in Delaware - it could end up hurting the state in the long run."
On a positive note, the legislature passed a government transparency bill sponsored by Miller. "It's going to allow taxpayers to see how the government is spending their money," Miller said. Simply by going online, "citizens and businesses will be able to look and see who's winning those contracts and find out what they're paying for goods and services."

Mortgage Reform
While Bobo and Del. Shane Pendergrass (D-13) praised a series of Mortgage Reform bills that toughen the oversight of the mortgage-lending industry and establish pre-emptive measures to help homeowners at risk of foreclosure, Miller was a bit skeptical.
"You can impose limits on Maryland banks, but you can't do anything about banks chartered in other states," he said. "We've put Maryland lenders in a separate category, so now it's going to be harder to get loans from Maryland banks. Mortgage fraud is already against the law, so this has the potential to create a feeding frenzy for trial lawyers ... [because] the lender will be required to cover the legal costs."
A measure to allow state and local law enforcement to use cameras to catch speeders failed because there wasn't enough time to debate the legislation before the annual session ended. Sen. Jim Robey (D-13), who supported the legislation, did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.
Del. Guy Guzzone (D-13) was unable to get enough votes to pass legislation aimed at giving mobile home park residents in Howard County the right to purchase their community if the park owner receives and is considering a redevelopment proposal.
"I don't think we really know yet why it got shot down," Guzzone said. "We will be debriefing first ... before we decide what to do and whether we want to resubmit it next year."

County Budget
At the county level, Howard County Executive Ken Ulman (D) submitted a total general fund budget of $854,500,087 to the County Council. His budget represents an increase of 5.16% from that of fiscal 2008, the lowest increase (with one exception) in the last decade.
"We have identified several areas where county government could be more cost effective," Ulman wrote in an accompanying letter to Council Chair Courtney Watson (D-Dist. 1), including the consolidation of governmental television operations into Howard Community College's studio and closing the government's on-site print shop, which would result in a combined annual savings of approximately $1.25 million.
Ulman's budget proposes a 20.3% decrease for the Department of County Administration and reduces the General Government budget category by 6.4% and the Public Facilities budget category by 5.5%.
Highlights include $537.9 million for education, including public schools, libraries and the community college; an increase of 9.43% for community services; $4.7 million in grants to local nonprofit agencies; and a $500,000 grant to the Healthy Howard program.
Ulman also proposes to combine all solid waste collection - recycling and trash - under the Environmental Services Fund, with a $50 increase in the trash collection fee to defray the costs of distributing new recycling bins to the entire county.
In terms of Other Post-Employment Benefits for county government retirees, the county is dedicating $15 million to its outstanding liability, divided between the Board of Education, Howard Community College, the Howard County Library and other county agencies, with $10 million coming from last year's budget surplus and $5 million gleaned from next year's revenue.