WHO: Judge Robert Bell
WHAT: Maryland’s chief judge is reconsidering pay cuts for judges in the state to relieve the budget crunch. The Court of Appeals plans to hold a hearing on the issue Tuesday.
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WHY IT’S A GOOD IDEA: Earlier, Bell said the state constitution does not permit him to lower judges’ salaries while they are in office, but he ordered court employees to take furloughs. Gov. Martin O’Malley ordered state employees to take furloughs and plans to give back a portion of his salary in solidarity with them. Cutting a few days of vacation from the 27 days of paid leave judges are supposed to receive in 2009, as Bell proposed, could help ease court backlogs, save money — and show Marylanders that judges uphold both the letter and the spirit of the law.
WHERE TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT: courts.state.md.us/coappeals/index.html
BRIGHT BULB Making progress on BRAC
The state has helped create tax breaks for those investing in Base Realignment and Closure communities and created a tracking system to chart improvements. Plans for $1 billion in intersection improvements and MARC upgrades may be on hold because of the economy. But communities should not despair. They have tools. Baltimore City, for example, could do more to attract investment and spur people to move in by slicing in half its property tax rate — at least twice as high as the rest of the state — than all of the BRAC improvements combined.
QUOTE OF THE DAY:
“We’re pretty safe to predict that if the economy tanks, you’re going to experience some increases in crime. … That certainly happens more often than not. The more strain you put on the household, the more people tend to drink and the more they tend to get into mischief.” – Gary LaFree, a criminology professor at the University of Maryland, on news that crime rates in Maryland are increasing for the first time in seven years.
