[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:00] Okay, first of all, I want to welcome you guys. We've got the head of MAKO in front of us. We've got Jack Wilson and we've got Michael Sanderson.
[0:11] So once again, guys, welcome, Jack. Congratulations. I don't know if that's good or bad, but yeah, either way, either way.
[0:20] But honestly, I've been around you for many years, you know, and seeing you in action.
[0:26] And I really appreciate what you're doing and helping out all the counties and all that.
[0:34] So, and really, more than that, too, is, you know, govern beside you guys and all the stuff
[0:42] that you would help us do and the leadership you're doing down there in Queen Anne and helping
[0:48] helping us and guiding the guys and helping us and being a good partner.
[0:53] I really, really appreciate it.
[0:55] We have a very solid team here on the upper-short, upper-short channel.
[0:59] We definitely appreciate the partnerships with everybody.
[1:01] So if you guys want to go ahead and get kind of organized here and get started, that would be great.
[1:06] Just in the spirit of the new season, we'll kick her off.
[1:09] Yeah.
[1:10] So yes, just for the record, I'm Jack Wilson,
[1:12] Queens County Commissioner and President Mako this year.
[1:15] and to my right is the esteemed Michael Sanderson Executive Director of MAKO. So as I said before off
[1:22] the camera we are on our 17th county today. We visited the two other upper shore counties earlier
[1:29] and we started out we hit gangbusters we did like seven six counties I think right out of the
[1:35] gate right after session so we kind of went around and we Michael gave a very depressing
[1:43] look back at session and what it was and wasn't to be and the things that were, well, let's
[1:49] just say, anyway, we decided when we got back to go, since we left most of the rooms with
[1:52] people just really, I mean, like they just wanted to quit their meeting and just get
[1:57] up and leave at that point.
[1:58] Right.
[1:58] And so we got to pick it up for a second.
[2:00] Not that we have a whole lot of better content now, but we're kind of, we're looking ahead,
[2:05] right?
[2:05] The past is the past, so we're going to look ahead.
[2:07] So Michael give you a little bit of a backtrack on this past session
[2:10] But looking more forward to some of the stuff that's still hanging out there from this past session and some other stuff
[2:16] That may rear its head in this next session, but the most part that seems like a rosier picture than the old one
[2:22] So yes, sir with that Michael went one thing. Hey Pete. Can you hear us? Okay, Pete?
[2:30] Hey Pete. Can you hear us?
[2:38] Okay. All right, so you stay yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, and I think you meant
[2:45] Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah. Well, thank you. Good afternoon. Thanks very much for clearing some time for us
[2:52] Yeah, as mentioned I'm Michael Sanderson director at the Maryland Association of Counties and
[2:56] We always feel duty bound to bring you a stack of paper and that sort of stuff
[3:01] Without any intention of going through that in a whole lot of detail
[3:04] But it's a coverage of a lot of things that have been in our media in recent weeks particularly issues that I think have some
[3:11] consequence going forward and that's what I want to focus on. Some of the stuff on
[3:16] the front of the page is looking backward at this last legislative
[3:19] session but once we get to July and August it feels a little more attractive
[3:23] to look forward. So I'll try to do some of that. I'll set the table a little bit
[3:27] with just some nuts and bolts on fiscal issues state budget and where we are
[3:32] and that connects to the 10-year rollout of the blueprint education plan
[3:38] and which we're about four years into or thereabouts
[3:41] that connects to the state fiscal stuff
[3:43] and it's also been a hot topic
[3:45] as we've met with county officials and other jurisdictions.
[3:48] I'll mention a couple other topics
[3:50] that have some fiscal consequence
[3:52] where more policy-driven housing still a hot topic
[3:56] and energy generally speaking is gonna be in the headlines
[4:00] and gonna be on the menu for the General Assembly
[4:02] this next legislative session, I'm rather confident.
[4:05] and then close with a comment about road funding
[4:08] that we're due for a fix there too.
[4:11] So let me try and skip through that handful of things
[4:13] and then if there's something I miss
[4:15] or something you want to get into further,
[4:16] we'll double click there.
[4:18] State budget situation overall got really bad.
[4:21] I think we were here visiting with you around a year ago
[4:25] and I was guessing how bad the number gets.
[4:28] With a 25 or 26 billion dollar state budget,
[4:31] they can have a pretty big sounding number
[4:33] not turn into a really big problem.
[4:35] like $300, $400 million these days for the state budget is a couch cushion kind of thing.
[4:41] We can handle that by nips and tucks and we won't have to, we're not going to furlough
[4:45] state employees or anything at all like that for $400 million, not that big of a problem.
[4:48] Once it got to $3 billion going into last session, that's when the consequences get
[4:53] really serious.
[4:55] They closed the $3 billion problem with about halfway with new revenues, changing
[5:00] tax rates and extending application of taxes to different things and so forth.
[5:04] and then some other things to slow down spending,
[5:07] not a whole lot of conventional budget cuts,
[5:09] but slowing down state spending.
[5:11] One element of that is going a little deeper
[5:14] and invoicing counties for state services,
[5:17] which I don't like that as a trend
[5:19] because it's just too darn easy.
[5:23] So that ended up being, counties ended up taking
[5:25] about 150 million total in shifts.
[5:27] Most of them of that flavor have sort of shifted costs.
[5:31] Help me with that, help me with that, what you mean by that, is that sort of like a teacher's pension stuff?
[5:36] Yes, yes, so for this particular year, I mean, forgive me, but like the two-minute version is, if they're sitting in a budget strategy meeting saying,
[5:46] well we need to find 100 million bucks out of a local government or probably out of the counties, they could do something like,
[5:52] let's zero out all the money we send to them for their local health department, that's about 100 million dollars, you could do that.
[5:57] But what a cruddy headline, right?
[6:00] That goes in the newspaper, state backtracks
[6:02] in the wake of this terrible pandemic,
[6:04] now we're no longer interested in prevention.
[6:06] Like, terrible, right?
[6:07] So you suddenly, and even if they thought
[6:09] the counties would pick up the slack
[6:11] and cover the surface,
[6:12] it's still a really rotten headline.
[6:14] Instead, the idea of, oh, the cost of pensions
[6:19] for our teachers in public schools
[6:21] have gone up more than expected
[6:22] to the tune of almost 200 million bucks.
[6:25] We can just invoice the county for half of that.
[6:28] They tinkered with doing it all.
[6:29] They only did half, but 93 million bucks,
[6:32] it just comes out of the sky.
[6:34] It's out of your budget, but they don't feel it,
[6:37] and the teachers aren't mad, the people get the pensions,
[6:40] they're fine, the pensions still whole,
[6:42] it's just being paid for by somebody else.
[6:44] That's like political magic.
[6:46] So the next time the chips are down,
[6:48] why wouldn't they do it again?
[6:49] I don't love to say it that way, but yeah.
[6:52] So I think that's a it's an it's an alarming trend if they were cutting a service
[6:57] We'd have the firefighters with us or the libraries with us or the health departments with us in this case
[7:02] It's just paper shuffling between their budget and yours and I regret you're losing that fight
[7:09] Don't love how that played out, but
[7:11] What what the state wanted to do was put themselves in an okay situation for two years
[7:17] So make the 26 budget that we're in now work out and then also the forecast for FY 27 looked good enough for them to get out of town thinking we're probably fine.
[7:28] Unless the federal budget reconciliation that happened earlier this summer, unless that went way sideways and they threw states overboard with Medicaid and programs like that.
[7:36] If that was a new billion dollar hole in the state budget right away, that could have been a fall special session.
[7:42] Come back to town and do some more things to fill that gap.
[7:45] It wasn't that immediate in that abrupt. It's going to have some state effects, but it's not a billion today
[7:50] So I think the reasonable forecast is the 26th session where they do the 27 budget
[7:59] relatively calm
[8:00] probably not a big crisis what they do have coming for them though is
[8:06] The education trust fund set up set up with casino money and some other revenues dedicated for education purposes
[8:14] the casino money was by constitutional amendment,
[8:17] fenced off, can't be used,
[8:19] even for current education programs
[8:21] asked me for new and like new improvements
[8:23] in education stuff.
[8:24] It means it built up a multi-year balance
[8:26] before the blueprint even started.
[8:29] So the status had the luxury of taking money
[8:31] out of a piggy bank to pay for their share
[8:33] of the blueprint for years one, two, three and four.
[8:36] And they got enough balance there
[8:37] they could pay for year five.
[8:38] Next year's budget they don't really need
[8:40] general fund money for the blueprint in 27. So next year can be relatively calm. It's in 28,
[8:47] fiscal 28, that'll be the 27 legislative session, where the balance in the funds no longer going
[8:53] to carry it, they're going to need cash, and suddenly they're going to need more than a billion,
[8:57] probably more like two to three billion dollars. They'll be back in the hole for the FY28
[9:02] budget. So the story from last year is going to repeat itself, but with a year off,
[9:07] like something skip a generation, it's like we're gonna skip a year. 25 was
[9:12] lousy, 26 can be okay, 27 can be lousy again. It'll set up timing for a debate
[9:18] about education by the way, built into the 10-year plan that created the
[9:23] whole thing was supposed to be, they're calling it an audit, I don't think
[9:27] it's truly an audit, but an evaluation on what are we getting for our
[9:30] investments in education, what are we seeing with student performance, what
[9:34] what we're seeing with services to children in need
[9:36] and the areas of high concentration of poverty
[9:39] and our English language learners and so forth.
[9:42] Not all the results will be in,
[9:43] but we would hope to have seen the needle move
[9:45] on some of those things.
[9:46] So we'll have that analysis in hand
[9:49] by the end of next calendar year.
[9:51] So again, pointing toward the 27th session
[9:53] for the time for some reckoning
[9:55] on both fiscal and the policy side
[9:57] of the education blueprint.
[9:59] I'm sorry I interrupted.
[10:00] So just help me out real quick.
[10:02] So the education part that we have money's tucked away here. That's not they can't be used for pensions. I
[10:09] Think it probably could have been used to pay for those pension costs the state elected not to do so
[10:16] The wording in the constitutional amendment was
[10:19] Was vague enough to allow almost anything under the education universe? I see someone has been used just curious
[10:27] just curious yeah it's a good question they probably could have covered these
[10:31] costs at least temporarily with that okay it was a legislative idea rather than a
[10:36] governor's idea I got some of this stuff okay okay just curious so so that's kind
[10:42] of where we are on big picture budget and fiscal stuff education has been
[10:47] coming up as we've been meeting with your counterparts from other county
[10:50] jurisdictions every county is either in the mix or a year or two away from
[10:55] seeing a year where the increase in in school spending required under the
[11:01] blueprint requires all the money or even more money than your county's likely
[11:05] to gain in revenue for that year and so that's it's an obvious squeeze at the
[11:10] local level it's also a squeeze at the operational level school systems are
[11:15] finding even if they get the supposed full funding from the state through the
[11:19] formula and all the funding all the money that's required to come from
[11:22] in the county, we're seeing school systems say,
[11:24] but we can't afford band, we can't afford sports,
[11:27] we can't afford teacher mentoring programs
[11:29] or a variety of other things that are not
[11:31] really elements of the blueprint,
[11:34] but they've been successful and effective
[11:36] and you'd wanna maintain them,
[11:37] it just becomes, we come hand in hand to the county
[11:39] and say, well, for us to have band,
[11:41] we need a million too.
[11:43] That debate is happening in the county governing bodies
[11:46] in your budgeting cycle.
[11:47] So, the program has its weaknesses
[11:51] is implemented at each level.
[11:53] So we can talk about that more as you like.
[11:56] I can.
[11:57] Let me mention quickly a couple other areas
[12:00] that I think remain relevant.
[12:02] Last couple of years, we've seen multiple bills
[12:05] about affordable housing in one form or another.
[12:07] Depending on who's doing the counting,
[12:09] we are 70,000 or 90,000 or 140,000 units short
[12:14] of residential housing units where we ought to be
[12:17] at the statewide level.
[12:19] In all candor, most of this debate is really being driven by the desire to find more downtown
[12:26] density and built-up areas already, mostly in the center part of the state.
[12:30] This conversation is mostly not about Talbot, it's not even about Easton, it's mostly
[12:35] about Silver Spring.
[12:36] However, General Assembly frequently sees these avenues as an opportunity to talk about
[12:44] one-size-fits-all.
[12:45] We saw bills introduced last year to change local zoning approval process,
[12:53] timetables and take you to court if you haven't decided things in the right way
[12:57] or at the right schedule and other things along those lines.
[13:00] The original bill was just on several counties calculated to have a housing shortage.
[13:05] The later part of the session the bill turned into all 24 jurisdictions.
[13:08] It ultimately just failed, period.
[13:11] that's been laying at the foot of Mako and County Objections,
[13:16] at least partially fairly, maybe partially unfairly,
[13:19] but that debate is going to continue.
[13:22] The smart money is that a bill will pass this session,
[13:26] even if only because it's an election year,
[13:29] and that's what legislators do.
[13:31] They pass bills.
[13:32] There's a lot of components to the housing crisis
[13:34] that are not really connected to state policy
[13:38] or local zoning and so forth.
[13:40] There's interest rate concerns and there's consolidation
[13:43] in the marketplace of builders
[13:44] and there's all sorts of external private equity players
[13:48] and meddling with our housing markets
[13:50] to build for Airbnb and other things like that.
[13:53] A lot of stuff like that is going on,
[13:54] but set it all aside, I think a bill's gonna pass.
[13:57] We should be in the middle
[13:58] trying to make sure it doesn't overwhelm
[14:00] our local capacities and processes
[14:02] for local and community input.
[14:04] So I anticipate that being a big fight.
[14:06] whether it's a big fight in the more rural jurisdictions is yet to be seen.
[14:10] One smart way to go would be to again focus on the big places that have a
[14:15] calculated shortage and try and deal with it that way. We'll see. And then I'll
[14:20] mention energy just because it's it's going to be on everybody's mind.
[14:24] Everything you read in the newspaper about energy bills rates are going up.
[14:29] The last capacity auction in our multi-state region there was sort of a
[14:33] cabal among the regulators to say well let's put a cap on how how much our rate
[14:38] increase can be at this meeting at 28 percent which is a staggeringly high
[14:42] number and they sat down and the first bids from the suppliers started at 28
[14:47] percent they've just immediately started at their ceiling it looks as though
[14:52] there's just too much going on in the energy universe we haven't been the
[14:57] United States, not we, Maryland.
[15:00] But the United States has not been building very much
[15:01] generation capacity in the 80s, 90s, and into the 2000s.
[15:05] So we've got a bunch of old stock
[15:06] that probably should be mothballed,
[15:08] like the Anorundal coal burning plant on Brandon Shores
[15:11] probably should be mothballed now.
[15:13] We can't afford to mothball a plant right now
[15:15] because we can't generate enough for all of our demand,
[15:19] which is spiking like mad,
[15:21] because everybody loves the AI
[15:23] and we need huge data centers
[15:25] that are monstrous energy users
[15:27] to maintain these fantastic little tools.
[15:31] So, we haven't seen a spike in electric demand.
[15:35] There's only one in American history
[15:37] and it was with the advent of
[15:38] window unit air conditioning, I'm told.
[15:40] It's the only other time anything like this, but boom.
[15:43] So, everybody wants electricity
[15:44] and we don't have an infrastructure to generate it.
[15:47] We also don't have a very good grid
[15:48] to distribute what we need.
[15:51] And it's gonna be upward pressure on rates.
[15:54] And so legislators had an event yesterday
[15:58] where they were trumpeting a bill they passed
[16:00] to give people like a couple of rebates.
[16:02] Folks will see a $40 rebate a couple of times.
[16:05] I guess you make, they liquidated a state fund
[16:09] to send those one-time rebates out.
[16:11] But what do you do about a long-term
[16:13] 40, 50, 60% increase in electric rates?
[16:16] Folks on fixed income don't have any way
[16:18] to find that money.
[16:20] So that's a political issue of its own.
[16:23] adjacent to it is the siting of clean energy facilities.
[16:27] Marilyn has said we want to have portfolio of electric
[16:29] suppliers in our state driven largely through growth
[16:34] in clean specifically solar.
[16:37] So we're seeing land use pressures.
[16:38] I'm sure you're in the middle of that too.
[16:40] The whole eastern shores in it, just about every state.
[16:43] It's just as each click as the standard for solar
[16:46] goes up, there's more and more projects that go
[16:49] from being this doesn't make sense to, well,
[16:51] Well, maybe it'll pen slot now because BGE is desperately looking for suppliers of clean
[16:56] energy.
[16:57] So put all that together, energy stuff is going to be tricky.
[17:00] I don't think it's likely that we have a full top to bottom like re-litigate last year's
[17:05] fight over siding the facilities.
[17:08] We got a tiny tool on that front for the counties who have a priority preservation area as
[17:15] defined as rural.
[17:17] There's a cap on how much of that can go solar and then you can start to say
[17:20] know up until now the courts have said you have no ability to say no so that's
[17:25] potentially an arrow in our quiver but it doesn't feel like much and you do the
[17:29] math on five percent of all that area in a typical rural county and it's a
[17:33] breathtaking number so that will probably see well definitely see something on
[17:41] energy whether it's something material on solar and sighting I really don't
[17:45] know it's possible this is the year off on that front and I'll close with for
[17:50] For years we've been fighting on highway user revenues, the share of like gas taxes and so forth to come back to locals.
[17:56] We got decimated back in 2009 and this has been a crawl to try and get the counties back toward full funding.
[18:03] We're not even particularly close, but a few years ago, they passed a bill to give us a multi-year bump up and then sort of three good years.
[18:11] This coming year is the last of the three good years, then we fall off a cliff.
[18:14] So without a bill passing this year to it the very least extend the plateau. We're on
[18:20] We'll actually see we'll lose
[18:22] 20 to 30 percent of our level of highway user revenues
[18:27] That the governor would be mandated to put it
[18:29] We'd have to go hat in the hand and beg the governor to keep funding inside
[18:32] We don't want to be in that situation. This is the year to get something done
[18:35] We'll be pushing on that as well
[18:37] We'll have allies with municipal government and Baltimore City who has a bigger stake in this than anybody else
[18:43] and right now some political sensitivities in Baltimore will work in our favor. We don't want to leave Baltimore City holding the $70 million bag.
[18:50] So that's a quick, hopefully, run-through of a handful of issues. I can't get into everything, but I'd be happy to hear from you if there's something I missed or something we want to get further into.
[19:02] Okay. Good. Good job. Good job. So council.
[19:08] No, I think I think he covered everything.
[19:11] I think the main concern would be, as he mentioned, is the highway user revenues. And as you
[19:16] stated, I mean, this has been an ongoing issue ever since 2009. So do you anticipate
[19:23] a bill being put forward to continue that percentage back to the counties.
[19:32] The last time we got something done here, the tactic we used was put in a
[19:38] bill to fully restore the entire amount. Fully restore Baltimore City's share,
[19:45] all the municipalities share, and all the counties share. And it has an
[19:48] overwhelming fiscal note, but and there was almost no chance that the
[19:52] the legislature could really pass all of it.
[19:55] But the value of putting in a full restoration
[19:58] rather than a gradual or let's get halfway back
[20:00] or something like that is,
[20:02] it illustrates how far behind we've been left.
[20:06] So my first instinct is we put in a bill
[20:09] to just say, let's fully restore the money,
[20:12] maybe not for next year's budget,
[20:13] but for the following or something like that,
[20:15] but like a full restoration, here's what it looks like.
[20:18] And then.
[20:19] Negotiate.
[20:19] Yeah, and then you negotiate from there.
[20:21] And we got an OK deal last time.
[20:24] We got 20% or 30% bump in funding.
[20:26] It's not everything, but it's moving in the right direction.
[20:29] But Annapolis does like this.
[20:30] Every four years, in some sense, it
[20:31] kind of come back and gravel and cut a new deal, which
[20:35] sadly, we're at that point.
[20:37] Yeah.
[20:37] OK.
[20:37] Thank you.
[20:39] Yes, I smile when you were talking about the energy
[20:43] issue, because President Trump told the UN today
[20:47] that we're bringing back coal.
[20:48] So maybe they need to keep that plan.
[20:51] Just kidding.
[20:53] The second thing is on the affordable housing,
[20:58] I'm on the attainable housing task force through the town,
[21:02] and we are working on legislation for the town.
[21:06] Are we ahead on our skis on this one,
[21:11] or do they have to be met together?
[21:14] I think I think there's absolutely a window for if there are if there are
[21:21] things that our counties or our towns are lacking an authority to be able to do
[21:26] that could help promote housing I think we got a very ripe opportunity so that
[21:31] something Mako has been working on is at the same time we we generally want to
[21:38] keep land use decisions local and based in the community and that's a
[21:42] point of general wide agreement among the even people who are pro-housing
[21:48] mostly will default to but each community knows best how to how to guide
[21:52] things locally so that's our first instinct but that sounds like a heck
[21:57] no in Annapolis you come to the bill hearing and you either oppose the bill
[22:01] or you ask for 17 different amendments and it sounds like you're doing
[22:04] violence to the supporting housing so tactically we've been working with
[22:10] professional planners and a number of other stakeholders to say hey there's some things
[22:13] that are not really about local permit approvals or zoning processes but actually maybe our impact
[22:19] fees a one impact fee per house might be unfair it's a bigger share of a lower cost home maybe
[22:26] we should do impact fees in two tiers we can't do that right now under the state on the state
[22:30] authority think of that and 12 more things like that load them into a bill to say here's some
[22:35] local option tools for jurisdictions that are trying to promote housing in parts
[22:40] of the town or parts of the county or wherever we can and get some more stuff
[22:44] on the table. First of all, I like it if it'll help us get tools that'll work but
[22:50] I also like it that it brings us to the table with some solutions of our own to
[22:54] get into the mix so you know we can all be cutting ribbons at the end of
[22:58] session together. Can I circle back on one more question that you had with
[23:01] that regarding the housing, weren't the bills mostly
[23:05] geared towards counties that had TOD projects?
[23:09] So there was a standalone bill
[23:11] around transit-oriented development,
[23:13] but there are multiple bills in on housing sort of stuff.
[23:17] So one bill was exclusively about TODs.
[23:20] There was another bill that was a much broader
[23:22] and wider process bill that mostly said,
[23:26] the initial bill, I'm probably not doing it full justice
[23:29] here, but the initial bill more or less said,
[23:31] If you're in a county with a housing shortage, calculated so and so, you'd better have all
[23:37] your receipts if you're going to say no to a proposed housing project because you can
[23:41] be taken to court on a long series of grounds that would not have been the case prior to
[23:46] passing this bill.
[23:48] So you'd better have dotted all the I's and crossed all the T's and make sure you're
[23:51] not, you know, you're applying the laws correctly and wisely and so forth, none
[23:55] of these like thumb on the scale kind of things.
[23:58] But wasn't that geared towards APFOs?
[23:59] part of that bill was about APFOs.
[24:02] So it's jurisdictions who have limits on
[24:05] we can't build until you have the infrastructure.
[24:07] By the way, that's been a central tenet, forgive me,
[24:10] but that's been a central tenet of smart growth policy
[24:13] in this state for as long as I've been at Mako,
[24:15] which is, since the dinosaurs basically.
[24:18] And in all candor, we resisted some of those things
[24:22] saying that's the state being awfully heavy-handed
[24:24] and telling us how to make growth policy.
[24:26] And ultimately we came up with,
[24:28] Okay, these are going to be the the priority funding areas that will designate the growth areas and we have the tier maps for
[24:34] Development on septic and so forth. All those were done sort of at the bay net from the state and now we're being told
[24:40] You're not allowing enough growth
[24:42] Interesting a whole report from the housing department saying that there's not enough as a high-density
[24:48] Rural development. Yeah, we're not not enough huge apartment buildings out there in the cornfields. What's going on with you guys?
[24:54] Well, I think Easton has plenty now in the cornfields.
[24:58] Anyhow.
[25:00] I had a third question.
[25:02] And this may be on the scope.
[25:03] I didn't know whether MAKA would play
[25:05] any role in the discussions about redistricting
[25:09] the congressional districts.
[25:11] Do you?
[25:11] Probably not.
[25:13] We have a historic that got involved at that level.
[25:16] In the event that the conversation might
[25:18] go as far down as the processes that the counties use
[25:22] to either draw and develop districts
[25:25] or potentially into the process for how do you vote,
[25:30] which has been, Annapolis has nibbled around that issue.
[25:33] Some counties, there's at-large voting
[25:36] for district-only representation in some counties.
[25:42] And that's turned into an issue in Annapolis for me.
[25:45] Those are the sort of things that feel like our lane,
[25:48] but the drawing of congressional districts,
[25:50] which is the cause of the moment, probably not a question.
[25:54] Interesting spectating, though.
[25:57] Yep, I'm good.
[25:59] Mr. Steph, are you good?
[26:02] Hey, Pete, do you have a few questions or anything?
[26:10] Okay, okay.
[26:13] I would like to mention, under the year, you're an
[26:16] invoicing topic. Maybe you could take a moment to talk about this
[26:19] core funding that we're hearing in specific
[26:23] public health at their growing issue, and what your view
[26:28] is on that, and what authorities do they have, and do you see it hardening?
[26:36] We're putting a lot of time into this right now, in hopes of
[26:40] that landing in a decent place.
[26:42] I'll try and abbreviate what could be a long
[26:44] and technical conversation into a manageable
[26:47] and hopefully understandable one,
[26:49] but like the 60 second version on this is,
[26:52] for decades the state has been providing some money
[26:55] for your local health department through a formula
[26:58] and then expecting the locals to match that
[27:01] through a match.
[27:03] What's your match, 50-50?
[27:05] One to one, two to one?
[27:06] We're not sure because it was never actually
[27:08] are written down either in law or in regulation.
[27:12] So it's probably in a manila folder some place
[27:14] in an office of a person who retired in the 90s.
[27:18] So we now are in a weird mess where
[27:21] we've had staff turnover at the Department of Health,
[27:24] and I think probably without any malice,
[27:28] this has gotten complicated in multiple ways.
[27:30] The states put more money on top of their own formula.
[27:32] Does the match apply to that,
[27:33] even though it's not really formula money?
[27:35] What happened to the money from that one year?
[27:37] We're not sure it's gotten complicated and in the recent years
[27:41] We've had a couple counties suddenly out of the blue after giving well over their required match for years and years suddenly be told
[27:48] Oh, you missed your match when you passed your budget two months ago
[27:51] It's August 10th now, but I'm letting you know you missed your mansion and your health officers coming to you with a letter saying
[27:57] We need another seven hundred thousand dollars or in one county's case another four and a half million dollars
[28:03] It's an awkward circumstance which I think is not helped by there being
[28:08] opacity in the law and in the regulations and so forth. So there's no
[28:13] place you can go back to and say this is definitely what it was supposed to be
[28:16] it always was because it was just kind of probably in a Lotus 123 file or
[28:21] something like that. Anyhow, that's where we're stuck. I think there's a
[28:26] good opportunity for some new leadership in the Maryland Department of
[28:30] health and our health officers and our counties to kind of work out an MOU and
[28:35] how this ought to work and sort of document a reasonable path forward that
[28:39] keeps us out of this weird oddity of wait invited our match go up you know more
[28:44] than double in one year that should never happen hopefully we'll have that
[28:49] figure out okay Michael and Jack I really appreciate your time and yeah
[28:57] anything that we can do to help you guys with we're here for you too yeah we do
[29:02] yeah yeah exactly okay guys okay thank you we'll work closely with like too
[29:09] So I appreciate you talking.
[29:10] Can you have a new friend who had a shot?
[29:12] Martha.
[29:12] He did answer.
[29:13] Oh.
[29:14] Martha, do you have?
[29:15] I'm sorry.
[29:16] I'm sorry.
[29:16] I was trying to do a clarion.
[29:19] Check your phone.
[29:21] Yeah.
[29:21] Yeah.
[29:22] So great.
[29:23] I did.
[29:23] I was curious.
[29:25] Martha, could you come up here so people could hear please?
[29:28] If you just turn one of your mics around please.
[29:30] Sure.
[29:31] Well, I am Martha Sparks, finance director for Tolga
[29:34] County. So I'm curious about what MAKO sees as the next steps for tweaks to the bill that
[29:43] will allow the Comptroller to collect the automations tax because I guess we've got
[29:47] two more legislative sessions to iron those things out before that bill comes effective
[29:53] in June.
[29:54] I think for all intents and purposes we've got one legislative session to get this
[29:57] fixed.
[29:57] One? Okay.
[29:58] I
[30:00] I haven't heard about what the nuts and bolts may be, but I remain optimistic that we'll get there.
[30:05] So if you've got specific concerns, I know both my colleague Kevin Kamali, he's been really close, working very closely on this.
[30:13] My sense is the comptroller's office has been as well, but I'm not at the level of chapter and verse right now.
[30:19] Whatever you need, we're on it.
[30:21] Okay, thank you.
[30:25] Okay, so anybody else? Okay, so I want to I want to introduce Michael, Mason, you
[30:34] want to go ahead and introduce yourself?
[30:38] Thank you, Council Chair, and Mason,
[30:43] Providence Strategies, we were selected by the Council through the RFP process to be
[30:47] the Government Relations Committee for a team for Talbot County and look forward to working
[30:52] with Michael and leadership as well as Rameco to assist the county and keep
[30:56] everybody in the loop of the happenings in an ambulance. Well that's great and
[31:00] we're happy to have you and a pleasure to have you so hopefully this will help
[31:04] get things moving a little bit faster and you know just just help be a voice
[31:10] for us for Talladee County and we really we really appreciate it that's
[31:13] for sure. We look forward to it as well. Thank you.