Good morning. Thank you for joining me as we prepare for the 2005 General Assembly session. The Assembly's work in Annapolis started early this year. At a time when most of us were enjoying the holidays with family and friends, our delegation was in Annapolis working. I join with all of our citizens in thanking them for their dedication and service.
December's special session drew plenty of attention. It was an emotional and contentious subject. But the hard work of governing is still ahead of us. In some circles, and in the media, this session will be watched intently, with one eye on November of 2006. You and I must stay focused on 2005, the needs of the citizens of Baltimore County, and continuing our renaissance.
We are fortunate to have great leadership in delegation chairs Senator Norman Stone and Delegate Sonny Minnick. We can count on Delegate Adrienne Jones, who is Speaker Pro Tem and Chair of the House Capital Budget Sub-Committee, and Senator Ed Kasemeyer, who chairs the Capital Budget Sub-Committee in the Senate, to aggressively advocate for Baltimore County on those important committees. We are also fortunate to have Senator Paula Hollinger serving as Chair of the Senate Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee, and Delegate Jimmy Malone as Vice-Chair of the House Environmental Matters Committee.
In this session, we have an opportunity to recommit state government to improving education through school renovation and construction and the reauthorization of the retire-rehire program. Providing students with quality classrooms and quality teachers is essential to our renaissance.
We have a chance to continue to reach out to families still struggling to rebuild homes damaged by hurricane Isabel. That there are still families in FEMA trailers more than a year after the storm is unacceptable, and we will work together to correct it.
The bond bills we are requesting will fund projects essential to maintaining and enhancing the quality of life in our neighborhoods. We will restore athletic fields, preserve open space and protect the Chesapeake Bay shoreline. We will do what our citizens expect - preserve the character of our neighborhoods, improve the quality of our communities, and make the most of the public spaces in our county.
This is a session of great opportunity, and the stakes are high. Every year that passes without full funding of our school renovation and construction program brings us one year closer to broken systems in our schools and broken promises to our students.
In 1999, Baltimore County made a commitment to give every child the best learning environment we can provide.
We embarked on an aggressive, system-wide renovation of our schools. In three years, we renovated 96 elementary schools and our special schools at a cost of two hundred and eighty million dollars. We have begun the renovation of our middle schools, and we are eager to complete these projects and move forward to our high schools.
Along the way, we have added programmatic enhancements at many schools, creating a better environment for teachers to teach and students to learn. Across the county and across the state, we are building better schools through both renovation and new construction, but the job is unfinished. A recent state taskforce put the total amount needed to have adequate school facilities in every Maryland community at 3.85 billion dollars. No one in the state has disputed this determination, or the need for more school renovation and construction funding.
With the passage of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, we have entered a time of strict accountability for students and teachers, and our schools have responded to the challenge. Eighty-three percent of Baltimore County high school sophomores took the PSAT in 2003-2004, and 52 percent of seniors took the SAT, compared to only 48 percent nation wide. Nearly 90 percent of our special education students scored proficient or advanced on the Maryland School Assessment. More Baltimore County students are taking and passing Advanced Placement tests. The number of African American students taking AP courses has nearly doubled in just three years.
Yet even as we ask our schools to meet higher standards, the state has established a lower capital-funding standard. Since 2001, the amount of state funding set aside for school renovation and construction has fallen from approximately two hundred and fifty million dollars to just over one hundred million for 2005. Of the total general obligation bonds issued to fund capital projects in Maryland, the state has allocated less than 15 percent to school renovation and construction. The Baltimore County School System capital request alone was nearly seventy million dollars. The total state budget for school construction and renovation is simply not enough. We urge the state to allocate additional funds to the school renovation and construction program.
Baltimore County faces many demands for capital dollars, but we are prepared to fully fund the county share of our renovation request. We need the state - we need your help - to fully fund the state share.
Just as important as the quality of our classrooms is the quality of the teachers in them. For years, we were able to bring back retired math and science teachers to fill gaps in challenging schools. Every year, we lose qualified, experienced teachers to retirement.
We need to bring some of them back to Baltimore County, and ensure that students in our challenging schools have access to the best teachers. The retire-rehire program wasn't perfect, but it filled a vital need. It should be rewritten and then rethought in this session to ensure that experienced teachers can be placed in our challenging schools.
It is also important that we provide quality facilities for extra curricular activities. Athletic fields at our schools and recreation facilities benefit the students and the community. We need seven hundred and eighty-four thousand dollars in state funding to restore fields at Fullerton Elementary, Catonsville Park and Berkshire Elementary, and to make improvements at Hannah More Park.
Last year, House Bill Three unanimously passed both houses of the General Assembly. The bill provided low-interest loans to Maryland families struggling to rebuild after Isabel. It was an important bill and a great help, but it has been under funded and over subscribed. Fifty-three Baltimore County families spent December of 2004 in the same FEMA trailers where they spent December of 2003. That is a year too long. Maryland recently received 2.7 million dollars from the federal government for aid to Isabel victims, and we support applying those funds to the Hurricane Isabel Disaster Relief Fund.
Baltimore County has made great strides in the effort to protect one of our most valuable resources - our waterfront. More needs to be done, and more can be done. It is essential for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources to continue funding our shoreline restoration program, and to maintain the current funding level for Program Open Space. We rely on Program Open Space funding to help us expand and maintain the recreational areas and open spaces that are a fundamental part of our communities.
We are also requesting a five hundred thousand dollar contribution from the state, which will allow us to expand the trail system at the Marshy Point Nature Center. Every year, the Nature Center hosts eight thousand Baltimore County fifth-graders as part of the school system's EcoTreckers ecology program. Marshy point, along with open spaces throughout the county, are an important part of our ongoing commitment to provide county residents with quality recreational and educational opportunities.
Baltimore County has been working with the Department of Natural Resources to purchase one hundred and seventy-one acres in the north county to provide that area with badly needed recreational resources. Thanks to a pledge from DNR and a federal grant secured by U.S. Senators Paul Sarbanes and Barbara Mikulski, we are moving quickly to complete the sale and begin designing the park. It is the county's request that the state will continue to partner with us on this property by providing three hundred thousand dollars to fund the necessary land planning and design work.
On the east side, the county has begun work on Tall Trees Park. The Park is a five million dollar project, which includes a community center, a police substation, athletic fields and trails. This year, Baltimore County is renewing our request to the state for nine hundred thousand dollars to fund the community center.
We are also preparing to renovate the five cabins at Lillian Holt Park in Overlea-Fullerton. The interior renovations are estimated to cost seventy-five thousand dollars per cabin - we are asking for one hundred and eighty-seven thousand dollars from the state which we will match to complete the project.
In the past two legislative sessions, legislators from Baltimore County and other jurisdictions have proposed bills designed to address challenges in the juvenile group home system. There has been legislation to require certification of group home administrators, to prevent over saturation of group homes in a single neighborhood, to prohibit multi-agency placements, and to keep children in their home jurisdiction whenever possible.
Baltimore County supported each of these bills, and when they are proposed again this year we will continue to advocate their passage.
We live in a world where security concerns are in the forefront of most people's minds. This session, we can make our communities safer still, and give our police officers more of the tools they need to protect our citizens.
We are fortunate in Baltimore County to have the leadership of Police Chief Terry Sheridan, who has helped make the Baltimore County Police one of the most decorated and skilled police departments in the state. We have seen crime drop in every precinct in Baltimore County. In the coming weeks, we will join with Mayor O'Malley and the Governor to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Joint Auto Theft Task Force, a successful city-county-state partnership that has cut auto theft in our area by half. We look forward to continued state support for this program.
Our police officers have more responsibilities than ever before, and they need us to provide them with new tools to address new challenges.
In today's complex world, reliable intelligence is a vital tool for our police officers. Whether they are investigating a suspected burglar or a potential terrorist, their hands can be tied if they don't know who they are facing on the streets. They can even be in danger. To help officers in these situations, Baltimore County supports needed legislation to allow police to ask for identification when they suspect a crime has been committed, or believe that a crime is about to be committed.
We also support legislation that would allow judges to sign no-knock warrants. Currently, we place a heavy burden on our police officers. When serving a warrant, officers themselves often must decide if they should enter a building without identifying themselves. They may feel this is necessary to prevent destruction of evidence, the escape of a criminal, or to prevent a dangerous, armed confrontation with suspects inside. If officers do enter without knocking, there is the possibility a court may later declare the search was illegal, and throw out the evidence. Having a judge sign a no-knock warrant before it is served will protect the officers and preserve the fruits of their investigation. Until a recent appellate court decision, judges signed no-knock warrants. This bill will restore that authority.
Over the past two years, the renaissance of Baltimore County has become more than an idea. It is taking shape in established communities like Dundalk, Towson, Essex/Middle River, Catonsville and Randallstown. Businesses are growing and expanding, new residents are moving in and new mixed-use centers are being planned. It is a testament to the strength of our county that so much private investment is being invested in our community, but government plays an important role in keeping up the momentum.
Baltimore County has approved the plans for a new, mixed-use development in Towson Circle. With a combination of retail space, office space and housing for Towson University, the project will be a valuable asset for county residents, and will help us bring the vitality and energy of the University into the center of the Towson Community. We are asking that two million dollars be included in the state's capital budget for infrastructure improvements to support this project in our county seat.
Three other mixed-use projects are under way in Baltimore County, and we have a role to play in supporting them as well. For high quality mixed-use communities to thrive, they need restaurants as well as stores, offices and homes. Our Department of Economic Development has been encouraged by our conversations with the members of the Licensed Beverage Association, and their genuine interest in new restaurants for three mixed-use developments in Baltimore County. With their support, we will be asking that additional liquor licenses be made available for these new developments.
Jim Rouse once said, "By building an image of the possible, we not only leap over a lot of roadblocks that would defeat us, we also generate a whole new constituency of people who want to see the image realized."
We've built a vision of the possible. We have energized our citizens, and like us they want to see renaissance, to see the vision realized. Baltimore County is one of the largest jurisdictions in the state. We are blessed with a diverse and growing population, which requires a dynamic and effective government. In past years, by working together as a team and by keeping the needs of those we serve at the forefront, we have had great success.
Our renaissance is strong, but it is still early. Our legislative goals for 2005 reflect the goals of our government, and together we can preserve our past, and secure the promise of our future for the next generation of Baltimore County residents.
Thank you for joining me this morning.
Revised February 1, 2005
Courthouse 