Category Archives: Montgomery County Council

Adam Pagnucco, Montgomery County Council

MoCo Could Use More County Council Districts

By Adam Pagnucco.

Abolishing at-large county council seats is a really bad idea because it would eliminate most political competition in county elections. However, adding council district seats is justified. Relative to other large jurisdictions in the area, MoCo has few local legislators per capita and huge districts.

The table below shows the number of local legislators (city and county council members, supervisors and board members) per 100,000 residents for 13 major jurisdictions in the area. Elected officials of municipal governments inside those jurisdictions (like the city governments of Rockville and Gaithersburg) are not included.

Large jurisdictions in the region have an average of 1.5 local legislators per 100,000 residents. At 0.9, MoCo is on the lower end of this distribution. If MoCo were to have the regional average number of local legislators per capita, it would have a 15-member county council.

The table below shows the number of residents per local district. Two jurisdictions (Alexandria and Arlington) do not have districts as all local legislators are elected at-large. Three others (Anne Arundel, Baltimore County and Howard) have all district-based legislators. The others in the table have a mix of district and at-large members. Prince George’s County once had 9 district-based council members, but in 2016, residents approved Question D to add 2 at-large members by a 67-33% vote.

With over 210,000 residents per local legislative district, MoCo’s districts have more than twice the number of people as the regional average. Let’s bear in mind that council members typically have just the equivalent of 4 full-time staff members each. District council offices, which are the primary points of contact for constituent services, can easily get swamped by service requests during busy times. (When I worked at the council years ago, District 1 would easily generate the most constituent contacts, especially when there were power outages!) If MoCo were to emulate the regional average, the county would have 10 council districts.

And so if there is to be a structural change to the county council, it should not be abolishing at-large seats – a change that would eliminate most political competition for council. Rather, the at-large seats should be kept and the number of districts should be expanded. Such a system would be more expensive for taxpayers because it would add politicians and staff. But it might increase responsiveness to constituents and it would preserve electoral competition, two big benefits for MoCo residents.

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Adam Pagnucco, Council At-Large, Montgomery County Council

Don’t Abolish the At-Large County Council Seats

By Adam Pagnucco.

Since 1990, the Montgomery County Council has had five district seats and four at-large seats. Every few years, proposals are made to get rid of the at-large seats and go to an all-district seat system. County voters rejected a ballot question doing so in 2004 by a 61-39% vote. The county is fortunate that they did because getting rid of the at-large seats is a terrible idea.

Why is that so?

The table below shows the outcome of council district races over the last six cycles, plus open seat special elections in 2002, 2008 and 2009.

Here is the distribution of outcomes in these contests.

The huge majority of these races are non-competitive when Democratic incumbents are on the ballot. In fact, a Democratic district incumbent has not been defeated since 1998, when challenger Phil Andrews door-knocked his way to victory against District 3 incumbent Bill Hanna. Since then, a challenger to a district incumbent has come within 10 points only twice. Democratic district incumbents have an 18-1 win-loss record since 1998, which includes 5 races with no opponent. In the last 10 races with district incumbents, the incumbents have won by 40 points or more 8 times.

Now let’s look at at-large council races since 1990.

There are four at-large council seats. In every cycle since the current system was instituted, there has been more than four at-large candidates, meaning there has always been competition. That has been true even in cycles in which all four incumbents were running (2010 and 2014). In three cycles (2002, 2006 and 2010), an incumbent was defeated. In 2018, an incredible 33 Democrats ran at-large when 3 open seats were available.

Public financing no doubt played a role in encouraging so many candidates to run at-large. In contrast, district races with incumbents in 2018 were sleepy aside from District 3, in which the incumbent used public financing and the challenger stayed in the traditional system. (The incumbent won.)

All of the above illustrates a central fact: at-large races with incumbents usually have much more competition than district races with incumbents. One reason for that is the nature of such elections. An at-large race is a beauty contest with the four most popular candidates winning. Negative campaigning is uncommon except when slates are present (as in 2002). But in a district race with an incumbent, a challenger must make the case that the incumbent has committed a firing offense; otherwise, voters tend to go with the incumbent. Most candidates stay clear of heavy-lifting negative campaigns, especially when they are likely to lose, and with rare exceptions (like 2018 District 3 challenger Ben Shnider) the best ones prefer to run at-large.

Political competition is precious. Decades of evidence from our elections shows that abolishing at-large council seats would destroy most political competition in council elections. That is a really bad idea.

That said, supporters of adding districts are not wrong. More on that tomorrow.

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Montgomery County Council

Council Adds Staff

The Montgomery County Council voted 8-1 to fund additional staffing for councilmember offices. Councilmember Andrew Friedson (D-1) was the lone vote against. According to the official council staff recommendation, additional staffing is needed “to enable staff to provide services required to respond to COVID-19 issues and implement recently-approved legislation.”

Increasing spending on staff is not especially popular with the public even in good times. I tend to take a somewhat less jaundiced view than many members of the public of spending on staff as it can help create more professional legislatures and better legislation.

But with so many needs now begging for each public dollar, this simply boggles the mind and makes me wonder what on earth they are thinking. It strikes me as having extreme potential to become a symbol of a council uniquely out of touch with the extraordinary struggles faced by county residents in these very difficult times.

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Montgomery County Council, Will Jawando

Time to Bag Jawando’s Rent Control Bill?

Montgomery County Councilmember Will Jawando (D-At Large) introduced legislation to temporarily suspend the county bag tax and enact rent control to respond to the COVID-19 crisis. The first has already bit the dust and it looks increasingly like the second should too.

Bag Bill Bagged

Councilmember Jawando introduced a bill to suspend the county bag tax during the health crisis. Though cosponsored by all of his colleagues, except Councilmembers Evan Glass (D-At Large) and Tom Hucker (D-District 5), the bill received a lot of pushback.

Much like Councilmember Hans Riemer’s (D-At-Large) bill to allow businesses to suspend payments for alcohol to the county monopoly, it faced the problem that bonds are tied to the revenues. Additionally, the environmentally-focused Sierra Club was not happy.

In a rare story for a bill sponsored by seven of nine members, it was on the fast track to defeat instead of passage. Most would have let the bill die quietly at this point. Mystifyingly, Jawando chose instead to announce a full retreat by declaring victory:

Councilmember Will Jawando plans to withdraw Expedited Bill 17-20, Carryout Bag Tax Suspension after working collaboratively with members of the community. . .

County Health Officer Dr. Travis Gayles recommends “a number of strategies for using reusable bags including washing them between use, customers packing their own reusable bags at check out and frequently cleaning surfaces in baggage areas.”

In addition, the Department of Environmental Protection has agreed to work on a campaign and resources to remind consumers to wash their reusable bags that can be posted at grocery stores and retail establishments.

Jawando can trumpet his success in finding an “alternative solution” but it sure sounds suspiciously like the status quo.

Rent Control: A Solution in Search of a Problem?

Now, Councilmember Jawando is pressing ahead with a rent control bill that is scheduled to have a hearing on April 21 (tomorrow) and a full council vote on April 23 (Thursday).

Jawando has explained to the media that his office has received “multiple reports” of rent going up 20, 30, 40 percent. He also expressed concern that at the end of the crisis that “You’re going to see people try to raise rents to get out people who can’t pay. And then you’re going to see a spike in evictions and then you’re going to try to bring people in at higher rents to recoup the loss.”

As Adam Pagnucco previously reported, the chambers of commerce have pushed back very hard on these claims:

We were deeply disappointed by the reckless statements you made. . . claim[ing] that landlords were instituting 20 – 40 percent rent increases during COVID-19.

The most offensive premise of the interview was the impression that rent gouging was a rampant and widespread issue. We were taken aback by these allegations and reached out to our landlord members to determine if any of them had implemented of that magnitude. To the contrary, we learned that none of our members reported any rent increase, let alone a 20 – 40 percent increase.

The claim that widespread rent hikes are now happening makes no sense.

No landlord wants to lose a regularly paying tenant now even if they have to make some adjustments and take some losses. There is no guarantee you can fill the vacancy and you certainly won’t be able to do so until this crisis ends.

If anything, rents may fall as demand declines due to mass unemployment. So much for recouping losses by jacking up rents, which is just not how rental markets work. Landlords can only charge what the market will pay.

If a landlord tries to raise rents now, tenants can just not pay due to the moratorium. Such a mean and stupid landlord may well be out even more rent as well as all of the time and expense of evicting someone once that is again legal. The landlord then also loses yet more rent due to the time it takes to fix the place up again, if needed, and to find a new tenant.

Jawando’s specific claim that landlords will raise rents in order to evict non-paying tenants makes even less sense as that will not allow a landlord to evict their tenant any more quickly. If anything, the tenant will appear even more sympathetic to landlord-tenant court judges who will be very disinclined to evict anyone during the immediate aftermath of this crisis anyway. Remember that evictions are a lengthy legal process.

In short, if it doesn’t make any sense even from an amoral greed perspective, is this really happening on a widespread basis? It might be better to explore specific situations and address any bad actors on an individual basis. I wouldn’t think landlords would want to be publicly exposed as raising rents right now.

In an email response to my request for specific information, Jawando stated that his bill “supports” landlords and tenants alike:

Some landlords have thankfully already decided not to impose the burden of a rent increase on their tenants during this time . . . The intention of Bill 18-20 supports the action of these landlords while protecting other tenants whose landlords have not made a similar decision.

The idea that his bill “supports” the vast majority of landlords who have not increased rent is bizarre in light of the response of the chambers of commerce pushing back on this bill as a broad smear of how landlords have responded to the crisis.

Despite repeated requests, Jawando has not produced an iota of concrete evidence that this has occurred let alone a widespread problem that requires fast-track legislation:

Some of the tenants who have contacted our office are nervous about coming forward to the media as you might imagine, however when I introduced the bill, I did share several cases with increases ranging from 9% – 60%.  

Except big claims and major legislation require hard evidence that should be made public. At the very least, Jawando could have by now produced redacted letters if such notices of rent increases are being distributed widely in some buildings. Regardless, any documents he has are public as he received them in his capacity as a councilmember.

Jawando’s bill has already been through several iterations, first excluding then including then excluding again commercial properties from the bill. These changes further suggest that the facts regarding the problem it is intended to solve are not known. At the very least, they aren’t being made public. Right now, all we have are unsupported anecdotes from the bill sponsor.

If this is a widespread problem, Jawando’s bill may be an appropriate response. If not, the Council should move along to address may of the other pressing problems that the county will face during and after this crisis.

The Council’s unanimous effort to fund the production of cloth masks to make sure all county residents have access to them is a much better example of good use of their time. My applause to all councilmembers for supporting this effort. More please.

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Montgomery County Council

Mais Oui, You Can Testify on the Budget! Insta Council Irony

From the Montgomery County Council Instagram Account on April 14th.

Yesterday, the Montgomery County Council gave notice of budget hearings on Instagram. Ironically, though first posted in English at 6pm, residents who wanted to testify needed to have signed up by 3pm.

Good news, however. They posted it in French on April 9th!

From the Montgomery County Council Instagram on April 9th.

If you follow Council actions but don’t speak the language of Voltaire yet wanted to testify, you better have followed them on Twitter where the same graphic was posted last week.

Or maybe Council President Sidney Katz made a TikTok. But I’m too old to know.

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Adam Pagnucco, Marc Elrich, Montgomery County Council

Grading the County Council

By Adam Pagnucco.

Regular readers know my views on the administration of County Executive Marc Elrich by now, but let’s turn to an equally important entity: the Montgomery County Council. The county’s charter gives the council enormous powers, especially over land use, legislation and the budget, and its decisions are at least as important to the county’s direction as the activities of the executive.

The current council has four freshmen, the most at any one time since the council of 2006-2010. The freshmen include a former county department head, a former senior state government official, a former Obama White House official and one of the county’s most seasoned civic activists, so they came well-prepared to serve. In fact, they have become so ensconced at the council that they don’t seem like true freshmen any more. Overall, while the council has some internal rivalries that occasionally can be seen, it has been devoid of the open infighting that plagued many prior councils. Like them or not, they have mostly stuck together during the trials of governing.

The council’s portfolio is vast and it has made dozens of decisions in its first year. In my view, eight consequential events rise above the others. The council’s performance on these events is the determinant of its overall grade, which appears at the end. Let’s get to it.

Mid-year savings plan (January)

The new council members had hardly adjusted their dais seats when they were confronted with a $41 million budget hole, prompting a mid-year savings plan from the executive. The council – and especially the new members – could have complained, delayed and otherwise squirmed. But instead they got down to business and made the cuts in short order.

Grade: A

MCGEO agreement (March through May)

After Elrich negotiated a set of raises with the largest county employee union that included a peak raise of 9.4%, the council had to decide on their affordability. This was not easy as the union had a long history of torturing defiant politicians. But the council stuck together and unanimously forced Elrich to negotiate slightly lower raises. Expect this issue to return if Elrich negotiates more mega-raises in the face of the county’s financial problems.

Grade: A

MCPS and Montgomery College funding (March through May)

When Elrich released his first recommended budget in March, two of the losers were MCPS and Montgomery College. MCPS received a stingy 0.9% local dollar increase while the college got an absolute cut. Council Member Craig Rice, who chairs the council’s Education and Culture committee, called the budget “an education last budget.” But the council didn’t do a lot better. Yes, it cashed a big state check containing Kirwan money to help MCPS. But local funding for MCPS went up by just 1.2% and the college still took a cut.

Grade: C

OPEB raid (March through May)

One of the biggest problems with Elrich’s budget was that it relied on a $90 million raid on the county’s OPEB fund, which pays for retiree health benefits. The council grumbled about it, but approved the raid on an 8-1 vote with only Council Member Andrew Friedson dissenting. The result was a comment from Wall Street credit agency Moody’s labeling the move “a credit negative.”

Grade: D

Accessory dwelling unit legislation (January through July)

Council Member Hans Riemer’s zoning text amendment to liberalize county restrictions on accessory dwelling units (ADUs) provoked fierce opposition from Elrich and some civic activists. In other years, the legislation would have been either killed or watered down into oblivion. But this time, the council tweaked it and passed it unanimously. The legislation probably won’t result in huge waves of new ADUs, but the council took an important stand on the need to build more affordable units. The issue of affordable housing will come back over and over again during this term.

Grade: A

Public safety communications project (May through July)

When Elrich vacillated on placing the final two towers for the county’s long-standing public safety communications project even after a crippling outage, the council sprang into action. After the council threatened to override Elrich and write the towers directly into the capital project, Elrich ultimately conceded. The council would have received a better grade on this if it had not had its own history of delaying this project, but the council did the right thing in the end.

Grade: B+

Police chief search (July through September)

After the retirement of long-time police chief Tom Manger, Elrich nominated former Portsmouth police chief Tonya Chapman to succeed him. Chapman had more baggage than an airport terminal. Once the council made clear that Chapman did not have the votes for confirmation, the administration considered another nominee who had a pension benefit issue that probably required a legislative fix. That nominee did not fly either, so Elrich ultimately nominated an acceptable choice to many on the council, acting chief Marcus Jones, whom Elrich had previously rejected. This was truly historic stuff. Never before has any council imposed its will like this on an executive to ensure a high caliber nomination for one of the county’s most important positions.

Grade: A+

Fox subsidy (November)

I have written about this again and again. It could take a while, but this decision is going to come back to haunt the council.

Grade: F

Overall

Setting aside OPEB and corporate welfare for Fox, the council’s record is pretty decent on a number of issues. And the council was magnificent in forcing Elrich to hire a competent police chief. Year two should be more challenging, especially if the county’s lackluster economic performance forces tough choices on the budget.

Overall grade: B

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Montgomery County Council

Navarro Doth Protest Too Much

Council President Nancy Navarro wrote a response to my blog piece, “Council Drive for Racial Equity Hits Budget Rocks,” which I published on Friday. Apparently, I hit a nerve by pointing out that the Council led by Navarro, who touts herself as a champion of racial and gender equity, has treated MCGEO, the majority female and majority minority county employees’ union, much worse than other county unions.

In her reply, Councilmember Navarro states that “Actually, the Council did approve generous raises for all of our employees (approximately 6 percent)—that achieve parity among all our negotiating groups. . .” Navarro omits the critical detail: the Council under her leadership has now awarded two deferred step increases to IAFF, FOP and MCEA but not to MCGEO—the only union in which women and minorities compose a majority.

Councilmember Navarro goes on to declare “to tie the Council’s approved raises . . . to racial inequities and social injustice, as Mr. Lublin does, is a baffling stretch.” Actually, it’s Councilmember Navarro who made the link in her declaring closing the racial income gap a matter of racial inequity. As the Council has now given two deferred step increases to three unions with white majorities but not the majority-minority union, the logic is very straightforward. Conversations held since I published the piece indicate that at least some of her colleagues agree.

The other rationale Councilmember Navarro highlights is agreement with my own concern about the growth of tax revenue relative to spending. She even highlights my point that most county residents haven’t received pay raises to makeup for stagnant wages during the economic crisis.

One could argue that this renders her support for not just one but two deferred step increases for MCEA, IAFF and FOP along with a major property tax hike perplexing. It also doesn’t explain why, having gone down the road of awarding deferred step increases, that two were given to MCEA, IAFF and FOP but none to majority-minority and majority female MCGEO.

There may well be other excellent policy reasons, such as pay differentials in the private sector for equivalent work, for awarding increases to all the unions except MCGEO. But Councilmember Navarro doesn’t make the case. Nor does it mean that it doesn’t still result in greater racial inequities. Rolling back MCGEO’s raises was the major budget decision made by the Council this year. Governing often entails tough choices.

Finally, Councilmember Navarro highlights a number of positive measures related to equity that the Council approved as part of the budget. A more complete discussion would have mentioned that many of these measures were already in County Executive Marc Elrich’s budget, which the Council essentially approved in toto.

The Council also made a number of positive additions, but these were possible solely because Elrich took the highly unusual and generous step of leaving $10 million unallocated for the Council to use. He was then more than happy to approve the additions as wholly in line with his priorities. While some councilmembers attacked Elrich for his pains, a little credit sharing along with the credit claiming would not only be more honest but make all involved look more gracious and like leaders.

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Montgomery County Council

Council President Navarro Responds

Good to see that even after time away from Seventh State that I can still touch a nerve with powerful officials. Today. I am pleased to present Council President Nancy Navarro’s response to yesterday’s post on how the “Council Drive for Budget Equity Hit the Budget Rocks.” I hope to have mine up on Monday.

The Seventh State’s May 30 post by David Lublin, “Council Equity Drive Hits the Budget Rocks,” incorrectly describes where the County Council is, in creating a Racial Equity and Social Justice Policy for Montgomery County. We do not yet have a policy. In 2018, I spearheaded Resolution 18-1095 that was adopted unanimously by the Council to start the process of the policy, which we plan to adopt later in the fall, after community input.

The post also leaves the reader with the erroneous impression that by not fully funding the salary increases originally negotiated by County Executive Elrich with MCGEO that we are somehow not committed to racial equity. Actually, the Council did approve generous raises for all our employees (approximately 6 percent)—that achieve parity among all our negotiating groups and that are sustainable for our county. Most MCGEO employees will receive salary increases of between 5.75 to 6.75 percent. Racial equity and social justice are urgent moral and socio-economic endeavors for our community and county leaders, however, to tie the Council’s approved raises of about 6 percent for each employee, to racial inequities and social injustice, as Mr. Lublin does, is a baffling stretch.

In fact, beyond the raises, the fiscal year 2020 operating budget makes several investments needed to assist our more than one million residents and focuses on initiatives and programs that will help to dismantle inequities. Some examples of these priorities, many of which I championed, include: fully funding the Board of Education’s request; adding $3.1 million to Montgomery College’s budget to provide $314.7 million for higher education; providing $84.1 million for Head Start and pre-k programs; earmarking $7 million in resources for the Early Care and Education Initiative, which I initiated; providing $327.8 million for the Department of Health and Human Services; earmarking $65.2 million for the Housing Initiative Fund; providing an additional $1 million to make Kids Ride Free an all-day service, as recommended by Councilmember Glass; and increasing Recreation Department programs that serve youngsters after school. We were able to make these strategic investments, while also providing our outstanding county government employees with substantial salary increases.

Finally, Mr. Lublin makes the following observation. “The increases are well above growth in our relatively stagnant tax revenues. Few county residents have received extra pay increases to make up for anemic wage growth during the economic crisis. I know I didn’t.” The Council agrees with him; that is why we adopted affordable but fair raises for our employees. Achieving racial equity and social justice in Montgomery County is a monumental task that demands access to opportunities for all residents. I encourage Mr. Lublin to engage with us in this process. I can assure him that I do not need to tout how “woke” I am. As the only Latina ever elected to the Montgomery County Council and the lone woman currently serving among eight men as president, I along with a significant percentage of our County residents, live it every day.

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Montgomery County Council

Council Equity Drive Hits the Budget Rocks

The Montgomery County Council has repeatedly focused on racial and gender equity. Supported by the entire Council, Councilmember Nancy Navarro sponsored legislation that requires a racial equity analysis of each piece of legislation. Councilmember Evan Glass sponsored successful legislation this year that bans consideration of salary history in an effort to promote pay equity between male and female county employees.

While these primarily symbolic acts passed easily, the Council flinched from much more meaningful action when it passed the budget this year.

County unions negotiated some stonking good raises with County Executive Marc Elrich this year. Analyses by Adam Pagnucco understandably focused on the politics of the raises for unions that supported Elrich. It’s certainly true that the unions supported Elrich, but the nature of the way that Montgomery negotiates union contracts propelled these raises forward and also merits attention.

Montgomery negotiated first with the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) and reached agreement without mediation or arbitration. The Firefighters union (IAFF) went next. These negotiations ended up in arbitration, as required by the contract when the two sides cannot agree. The arbitrator mandated generous raises for IAFF employees, which the county executive was contractually obliged to support during the budget process.

The unions aren’t supposed to talk to each other about these negotiations, but what do you think the chances are that doesn’t happen? As a result, there was no way MCGEO, the county employee union, was going to settle for any less. One imagines that the county executive was ill-positioned to talk them down, knowing the results from the previous arbitration (and knowing that MCGEO also knew even though they theoretically did not).

The County Council understandably viewed these raises as budget busters. The increases are well above growth in our relatively stagnant tax revenues. Few county residents have received extra pay increases to make up for anemic wage growth during the economic crisis. I know I didn’t.

The Council chose to sharply reduce the pay increase projected for MCGEO, the county employee unions, which on top of a COLA and step increase had included an additional 3.5% for a step increase that got deferred during the economic crisis. The police union (FOP) received the same deferred step increase, but the council left it untouched.

While MCGEO members have received no deferred step increases, the other county unions have been much more fortunate. Not just FOP and IAFF employees but also MCEA employees (the teachers’ union) have now received two apiece due the actions of this and past councils.

Unlike the membership of the IAFF or FOP, MCGEO is the only union of the three that is both majority female and majority minority. In cutting salaries for MCGEO, the County Council directly eliminated spending that would have done far more to promote racial and gender equity than the more symbolic legislation sponsored by Navarro and Glass.

From budgetary and policy perspectives, the Council choices made sense. The MCGEO raise had the biggest impact on the budget because they represent far more people than FOP and IAFF. Moreover, police and fire protection are core services. My guess is that most county residents would rather see firefighters and police officers receive pay increases than, say, county liquor store employees represented by MCGEO.

It was the right decision. Indeed, one could easily argue that the Council should have cut more from all of the union pay raises because tax revenues have regularly disappointed with the county seemingly facing budgets shortfalls with the predictability of humidity in August.

MCGEO remains an easier target than the sacred cows of education (MCEA) and first responders (FOP and IAFF). However, along with Department of Liquor Control (DLC) employees, MCGEO also represent people like prison guards, sheriffs, social workers, librarians, and snow plow drivers. Many engage in dangerous and difficult work.

Perhaps county councilmembers should spend less time touting how woke they are in the future. When it came to spending hard cash, the Council blinked and reduced the negotiated salaries of the predominantly female and minority union even as it once again protected pay increases for the other two unions. Reality bites.

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education, Montgomery County Council

Was Montgomery College Funding Cut? Councilmembers Clash

After what I thought would be a relatively non-controversial post about the huge asset that Montgomery College is to the county, I received a request for a correction from Council President Hans Riemer (D-At Large):

David, while I certainly agree that Montgomery College is a gem, it is not true that the Council cut the budget for MC. The Council increased the budget for MC. The college will receive about $2.5 million more this year than last year. The Council even increased the amount for the College over what Ike recommended, by $750,000.

Craig Rice wanted even larger increases. We weren’t able to provide them due to our fiscal constraints.

I would like to request a clarification. To forward the assertion that we have cut the College’s budget is not accurate.

Hans

I appreciate Hans taking the time to lend his view and provide more information on the subject. I asked Councilmember Craig Rice (D-2) for his perspective. He took the time to provide a very thoughtful discussion of the topic that is well worth reading for its insight into the process and the politics:

David,

I think the best way to explain it to you is the same way in which Montgomery County public schools does their budget. The board of trustees and the president come together with a budget that supports not only the additional programming but the overall expenses for the college in the particular year.

Then they present this budget to the county executive who then presents it to the County Council. The county executive reduced or cut the approved budget that was approved by the board of trustees and the president. That then was sent over to us at the county council. We (education committee and then full council) decided to restore some of those reductions or cuts to the tune of $750,000 but still left $1.1 million in cuts or reductions from the college’s approved budget.

Now while technically this is an increase over last year due mainly to MOE just as Montgomery County public schools has an increase every year if we were to not fund maintenance of effort or not find the Board of Education to request it would be seen as a reduction i.e. cut.
And the crux of the issue is this. Montgomery college was very clear that it was stuck in a hard place between deciding on funding negotiations or funding equity gap programs or increasing tuition. We had a choice on the council to not force them to make that decision. But that did not happen.
The other challenge is that Montgomery college actually already reduced/cut their budget to adjust to the numbers that the county executive was hinting that they needed to be at anyway. To then layer on another reduction on top of what they had already proposed initially is why the college was severely at a disadvantage.
Craig Howard can give you exact numbers related to the college in terms of what they actually gave up. I have attached the packet for MC from Craig Howard which has more detail than you’d ever want.  http://montgomerycountymd.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=169&clip_id=14923&meta_id=154281
Thanks,
Craig Rice
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