I must start this week with a warning. Many of us are outraged at the way that ICE is being used by the federal government, and all of us have the right to protest and to record on our phones the work being done by federal agents with our tax dollars. Our local police department does not participate in immigration enforcement activities, and will even protect your safety as you peacefully exercise your rights.
My warning is that as soon as anyone engages in any violation of our civil or criminal laws, our police officers must act against them. That includes assaults on federal officers, interfering with their work, and threats of violence. So please, do not ever cross that line.
The flaw in the strategy of those who seek civil unrest as an excuse to establish an authoritarian government is that they must break the law and overcome the will of the American people to win. Our strength is in our numbers and our adherence to the law.
A pretty good measure of whether a government functions well is how it makes decisions about spending. Not many do it better than Anne Arundel County.
This morning, the Anne Arundel County Council passed the FY26 Operating and Capital Budget, right on time with no drama, and with a unanimous 7-0 vote. Congratulations to our seven County Council members, our Budget Office, our Auditor’s Office, and every advocate who lobbied for or against a budget item over the last six months. Not many of you got everything you wanted, but all of you were a part of creating and approving a budget that reflects our county’s values.
As we face attacks from the federal government on the services that our children, seniors, and families rely on, our County Council came together to support a budget that protects our people, all of our people, from the worst of the federal impacts.
The FY26 budget includes a record $52.28 million increase for Anne Arundel County Public Schools. That increase will fully fund Dr. Bedell’s compensation package, and will add 30 new special education positions and additional staff for bilingual support, social-emotional learning, and community schools.
For public safety, we are adding five positions to increase staffing at the Fire Training Academy, five positions to fully staff an additional shift at the Police Department’s new Real-Time Information Center, and two civilian positions to the Sheriff’s Office that will allow deputies to focus on courtroom security.
To protect our most vulnerable residents from the federal cuts that may be coming our way, we continue to invest in health and human services programs. We are providing $1.5 million to the Anne Arundel County Food Bank, recurring funding to make the Health Ambassadors and Healthy Communities Programs permanent, investing in violence prevention programs in Eastport and Severn, and increasing support for our crisis response mental health services. We are also creating the Family Protection Initiative, a fund to support children who lose a parent or guardian to deportation and provide legal defense services for low-income residents to uphold due process.
But we’re not just protecting against today’s attacks, we are planning for tomorrow by setting aside $10 million to backfill cuts to the county’s most essential federal grant funding, in addition to maintaining our rainy day fund at the maximum allowable amount. And we’re protecting our working families by lowering the property tax rate and maintaining the lowest income tax rate in central Maryland.
Those of us in decision-making roles can’t take all the credit. We are living in a place with strong economic drivers during relatively good economic times, when you average everything out. The great challenge we face, in my view, is that far too much of the wealth is accumulating in the hands of people who don’t actually need the money, and voters from across the spectrum believe that politicians work for wealthy campaign donors and their lobbyists, not for them. When that happens, democracy dies.
I am one of many who believe that our loss of trust in government is a product of the way we fund our elections. We all know that it’s the companies who are regulated by government and get contracts from government that write the biggest campaign checks, whether it’s federal, state, or local government they seek to influence. Democracies that have public campaign funding programs score higher on trust in government rankings.
That’s why I promised and delivered a public campaign finance program in Anne Arundel County, similar to the state program that Larry Hogan used in his first election for Governor, and like the programs that exist in counties across Maryland and the United States. The County Council approved the program as an option for candidates in races for County Council and County Executive, starting with the 2026 election.
That brings me to the one amendment that the County Council passed before approving the FY26 budget that surprised and disappointed me. It cut the $1.5 million that I was required by law to introduce, the level recommended by the legally mandated, bipartisan Public Campaign Financing System Commission, to just $250,000.
The four councilmembers who voted for the cut noted that their plan was to introduce legislation allowing them to add funds later in the year if needed, or next year. They did not address Councilwoman Rodvien’s warning about how inappropriate it would be later this year or next, in the heat of political campaigns, for Councilmembers to be making decisions about how much funding their opponents can access.
I share her concern. The bill established the Commission and its budgeting timelines to take the politics out of the process. I also worry that underfunding the program in this budget will have a chilling effect on candidates considering the program. Each must decide whether to forego all corporate and PAC money and limit individual contributions to a $250 maximum to be eligible for the public match, and that decision will always be based on advance assurance that the funds will be provided.
Fortunately, the fund already has $1 million in it, so with this budget the balance will be $1.25 million. But that’s probably not enough. When the Council voted to create the program, they were told based on estimates from other counties that it would cost $2-$3 million for each election (once every four years). The Commission was correct to treat the fund the way we treat our snow removal fund. It’s ok if they over-estimate and the money is not all spent, because it rolls over to cover future expenses. What’s not ok is to underestimate the cost, because in this case doing so decimates the budgets of candidates who choose to run small-donor driven campaigns and benefits the ones who don’t.
I trust that the Council will move quickly to amend the bill so that it can add funds later in the year, and get the needed money into the fund before the election heats up. Doing so would restore some of my trust in the system, and hopefully yours.
For more information about how the Public Campaign Financing System works, click here.
Until next week…