BERLIN — With just one full week left in the Maryland General Assembly 2015 session, state lawmakers still have to resolve hundreds of pieces of legislation including several germane to the local area and the Eastern Shore.
The General Assembly session closes with Sine Die on Monday, April 13, and there appears to be still more legislation to resolve then what has been accomplished thus far. During the session, the House and Senate will consider thousands of bills from the gravely serious to the rather mundane and many won’t be resolved until the 11th hour on April 13.
For example, legislation that would mandate a post-Labor Day start for school systems across Maryland has not yet come to vote in either of the respective House or Senate committees. Deemed a key piece of legislation, at least locally, going into the session, the bills have not yet seen the light of day. Other bills near and dear to the local area and the Lower Shore are moving through the process with affirmative or negative votes in either the House of Senate and many others might simply die without making it out of committee.
House Bill 690, called the Property Tax Fairness Act of 2015, would alter the formula by which counties in Maryland pay property tax setoffs to their municipalities for duplicated services and programs. For example, the Town of Ocean City provides services such as fire and police protection, ambulance service, recreation and parks and other programs to its municipal taxpayers, who are essentially double-billed for the services in their property taxes to Worcester County.
In simplest terms, the municipalities provide the services to its residents, essentially letting the counties off the hook on the expense of providing them. House Bill 690 is an attempt to address the property tax setoff issue by creating a process by which the cost of duplicated services can be negotiated by the counties and their towns. The bill, if approved, would change certain counties in Maryland, including Worcester and Wicomico, from “may” produce a tax setoff to “shall” produce a tax setoff. The bill has not come to vote in either the House or Senate.
Another bill that would improve the employment climate for veterans across Maryland including the Eastern Shore appears to be heading toward passage. The bills would raise the annual contract award goal for the Veteran-Owned Small Business Enterprise program from the current .5 percent to five percent. The intent of the legislation is to allow more veteran-owned businesses to compete for state contracts. The legislation would also increase the goals for veteran-owned businesses in local communities.
For example, Delmarva Veteran Builders has landed several construction projects through the state of Maryland including a handful on the Eastern Shore. However, the company landed most of the contracts through the small business procurement program and not through the VSBE program. Increasing the state goal for VSBE to five percent would open more opportunities for veterans. The bill passed the Senate, 47-0, this week and was scheduled for a hearing in a House committee on Wednesday.
House Bill 105, which would clarify the penalties of possession and use of marijuana paraphernalia, passed the House by a 90-48 vote last week and was scheduled for a hearing in a Senate committee on Wednesday. Last year, the General Assembly passed legislation decriminalizing simple possession of less than 10 grams of marijuana, making it an offense akin to a traffic citation.
However, the bill did not include language addressing the possession and use of paraphernalia, which remains a misdemeanor with all of the potential penalties still attached including court appearances, possible jail time, probation and fines. House Bill 105 would bring the penalties for the possession and use of paraphernalia in line with simple possession.
The House approved the bill, but not before Delegate Mary Beth Carozza was able to add an amendment that ensuring it would still be a misdemeanor to smoke marijuana in certain public places, including the beach and Boardwalk in Ocean City, for example. A Senate committee was scheduled to have a hearing on the bill this week.
In another issue close to home, local legislators were able to successfully convince Gov. Larry Hogan to reverse a clause in his vast budget that would have stripped millions of dollars from local impact grants from the state’s operating casinos and diverted it to the Educational Trust Fund. As proposed initially, the governor’s budget would have taken over $4 million earmarked for local impact grants to the communities in which the state’s casinos are located, including Worcester County, and moved it to the education fund.
The Eastern Shore delegation was able to successfully avoid that. The governor’s budget bill was passed by the House and Senate this week with the change in the casino funding formula intact, although the chambers are trying to resolve some of the differences in the two versions.