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This week started with welcoming remarks at a day-long Maryland Association of Counties (MACo) symposium on AI in local government. The audience was mostly people in IT whose job it is to ensure that counties have good tools and know how to use them. But it also included policy makers, the people who are tasked with creating the guardrails and transparency policies, and who make the decisions about when new tools go live.
For instance, in our county, we’ve been experimenting with AI responses to constituent inquiries, and we determined that the tool was useful as an aid, but not as a replacement for real people. Constituents are human, and they need to be treated that way. We’ve also had to be careful that the use of AI doesn’t create leaks in our systems through which our residents’ personal information might flow. Those are the kinds of challenges and experiences that need to be shared between counties, and I’m glad that MACo is doing the convening.
Next, I testified on the topic of local government revenue options before the Task Force to Modernize County and Municipal Revenue Structures, led by Comptroller Brooke Lierman. It was created by the Maryland General Assembly early in the year and is tasked with reporting back to that body and the Governor about options in time for the 2027 session. It’s a timely process, because the Trump administration’s signature legislation, HR 1, transfers obligations to state and local governments with no revenue to pay for them, starting right after the November elections. Maryland law limits how local governments can generate revenue, so unless the state wants to pick up the tab, they need to create more flexibility.
My testimony focused on the fact that since 1980 federal tax rates have steadily declined and loopholes have grown for the very rich, and that’s why we can’t afford infrastructure and basic services. Allowing locals to tax wealth at a higher rate is the only rational response to the feds doing the opposite. We’ll see how the politics plays out on that, given the role that big money plays in our elections.
The need for revenue was driven home later that day when I met with the directors of our health and human service agencies. Our Mental Health and Behavioral Health teams are trying to absorb over $1 million in cuts from state grants without cutting services, and the pressures started at the federal level. We discussed options for backfilling some of that with county funds. Then we got into the discussion of helping our residents with the new federal work, volunteer, and reporting requirements that they must meet to keep their SNAP and Medicaid benefits. It’s the epitome of government inefficiency to bury our public servants and most vulnerable residents in paperwork, knowing that the families who get cut off will end up in hospital emergency rooms, prisons, and homeless shelters, all of which ultimately will cost the government far more than any program savings. I suppose that it’s all part of an effort to weaken our nation.
But our agencies don’t break. They just work harder, because they are driven by love for community and neighbor.
The next morning, I spoke to 150 practitioners at the annual Behavioral Health Symposium in the basement of our Department of Health. I thanked them for their commitment to learning, and to providing even better services to their clients, but I also talked to them about funding sources for the work that they do for clients who are left behind economically. I encouraged them to speak out, to fight for funding, to tell the public and the politicians what they do every day.
“There's plenty of money in this economy,” I told them. “It’s just sitting in the wrong places.”
A few hours later, I walked into a room of a hundred men and women who get paid to operate our county’s wastewater system. As I noted in my remarks, their job is “to get rid of 600,000 peoples’ s--t.” But they are really good at it, and that’s why we were gathered. We celebrated the National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA) awards that each of our seven water reclamation facilities had earned, including Annapolis, Broadneck, Broadwater, and Cox Creek, each of which received Platinum for more than five consecutive years of perfect compliance. Overall, we exceed state requirements by 50%, and are rewarded financially for doing so.
I go to this event most years, and my takeaway isn’t just gratitude that these folks do their jobs well, but it’s surprise at the team spirit and fun. I won’t repeat the jokes I heard as we were posing for photos, because, well, you had to be there.
I’ll end the week on Wednesday’s highlight, the Raising of the Roof, organized by Recreation and Parks in the parking lot of the former Giant, then Halloween Store, and future Edgewater Recreation Center. We didn’t actually raise the roof, but there were workers on top of it removing sheets of steel. My job was to do a brief speech for video and a countdown to the launch of the excavator at the front entrance of the building. See video below.
We then went inside and saw what was left of the old roof, and it was full of holes. The project manager showed us where the roof would be raised for the gym, where the suspended track would go, where the pickleball courts would go, and where the classrooms and community spaces would be.
It’s been an exciting project, not just because it’s minutes from where I live, but also because Rec and Parks had been looking for indoor recreation sites in the southern part of the county for years, and wanted to do a big box renovation. I remember how thrilled I was when Director Leys told me that the Lee family of Lee Airport fame had accepted our offer, and then that our Resilience Authority would be managing the project.
The last time I was at the site was for the community open house when people were asked what activities they would want in a rec center. Lots of neighbors showed up and we’re all impatient for the opening. The good news is that it is fast-tracked as a design-build project and should be open by this time next year. As someone who grew up on the food coming out of that grocery store, I can’t wait to go there to finally get fit in my old age.
Check out the video.
Until next week…