A little bit of everything
Much or all of an annual $300 million extra payment into Maryland’s pension system is on the chopping block as Senate budgeters seek to balance Gov. Martin O’Malley’s $39 billion budget at a voting session Friday.
Read moreA controversial gas tax hike already passed by the House of Delegates was approved by a Senate committee Thursday, moving it one step closer to becoming law. The committee also approved a constitutional amendment requiring three-fifths votes in both houses to use transportation money for other purposes, a so-called lockbox.
Read moreA bill that would prohibit landlords from screening prospective tenants based upon their source of income was sent back to a Maryland Senate committee after three days of floor debate over whether landlords should be allowed to exclude those on public assistance. The 23-22 vote likely dooms the bill’s chances this session.
Read moreExpanding on last year’s Maintenance of Effort requirements mandating counties’ levels of funding for K-12 education, Montgomery County senators are seeking to establish similar requirements for county critical services throughout the state. Representatives of county governments think it’s a bad idea.
Read moreWhen the gubernatorial election rolls around next year, most of Maryland’s touch-screen voting machines will be past their prime.
The state is already facing a shortage of voting machines, with only four jurisdictions in the last election providing enough to meet state regulations.
In 2014, voting machines in 23 of the state’s 24 jurisdictions will be at least 10 years old, reaching the limit of the manufacturer’s guarantee.
State voters will have to wait three years before they can use upgraded voting machines with a verifiable paper trail, a delay which is angering election reformers.
The legislature’s budget analysts have proposed to phase out Medicaid coverage for pregnant women with incomes between 185% and 250% of the federal poverty line on the basis that these women will qualify for the state health exchange implemented under Obamacare.
But officials from Maryland’s $7 billion Medicaid program argue that this shift would jeopardize access to prenatal screenings and other health services that pregnant women and their babies need.
Read moreState senators on a budget subcommittee said that they were dismayed by the abysmal results of the state’s most recent audit of its Department of Human Resources, which distributes welfare, foster care, and other social services to needy Marylanders.
Its 2012 audit revealed hundreds of financial and ethical improprieties committed by state social workers between 2008 and 2011, including 77 repeat findings of mistakes that were discovered by auditors five years earlier.
Read moreIn the battle for expanded casino gambling, they brought out the big political guns Thursday to persuade hundreds of residents of the large Leisure World retirement community in Montgomery County that ads against Question 7 ads are misleading and dishonest. Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett and Sen. Roger Manno — all Democrats — told the seniors that building a world-class casino at National Harbor in Prince George’s County will have positive impacts on the state’s economy and education funding.
Read moreWith the final day left of this year’s legislative session, the Senate gave preliminary approval to its own version of a public-private partnership bill on Saturday that scraps two contentious amendments adopted by the House of Delegates and supported by the O’Malley administration.
Read moreThe O’Malley administration affirmed its support on Wednesday for a controversial public-private partnership bill that threatens pending litigation against the State Center development in downtown Baltimore.
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