Montgomery County’s 32 state lawmakers have their eyes on bringing education and transportation funding back to the county as the Maryland General Assembly convenes Wednesday,
With “the largest growing student population in the state,” school construction is of particular concern, said Sen. Jamie Raskin, D-Silver Spring and chairman of the county’s state Senate delegation.
County school system officials appealed to state decision makers at the end of last month, saying that the $24 million Maryland granted Montgomery County Public Schools toward construction leaves the school system $160.5 million short of what it needs. School officials had been hoping for at least $40 million.
| Maryland General Assembly |
| Starts: Wednesday at the Statehouse in Annapolis. |
| Ends: April 9. |
| Lawmakers: 47 senators and 141 delegates elected from each of the state’s 47 districts. |
| Major issues: Transportation projects, gas tax, teacher pensions, maintenance of effort for school funding, same-sex marriage, gambling and the state’s cash-strapped budget. |
If the state does not give MCPS additional funding, some school construction projects likely would be delayed until the county or the state can come up with the money.
The state’s maintenance of effort law — which requires counties to increase per-pupil spending each year, regardless of the effect on local budgets — also needs to be changed, Raskin said.
The current law punishes the county for funding the school system at high levels in the past, said Del. Susan Lee, D-Bethesda and vice chairman of the county’s House delegation.
The delegation wants transportation funding to bolster ongoing projects aimed at enhancing public transportation, such as the Purple Line, a proposed light rail system that would run from New Carrollton to Bethesda, and the Corridor Cities Transitway, a transit line that would extend up the Interstate 270 corridor, Raskin said. And the county has a long list of road projects.
“We’re now dealing with some of the worst traffic in the United States of America in our county,” said Raskin, explaining that the county needs both public transit and road improvements to lessen the congestion.
With a projected $1 billion shortfall in the state’s fiscal 2013 budget and a transportation trust fund that has been raided over the years to feed the rest of the state’s budget, many members of the delegation are supporting a proposed 15-cent gas tax increase to fund the projects, Raskin said.
The state also should protect the transportation trust fund from being spent on anything other than transportation, said Del. Kirill Reznik, D-Gaithersburg, who has proposed legislation on the subject in the past.
Other lawmakers have brought up a millionaires tax and a potential tobacco tax increase, Raskin said.
“I’m reluctant to raise taxes at a time when we’re trying to stimulate the economy, but on the other hand we certainly need to make some long-overdue investments in certain areas, including education and transportation,” he said. “Everything should be on the table at this point.”
