Good Morning. Thank you for being here as we prepare for the 2006 General Assembly session. This year is the last session of this legislative term. Since our first session together in 2003, many great things have been accomplished for the people of Baltimore County.
Working as team, we have secured nearly $50 million in school renovation and construction funding. The bond bills our senators and delegates carried to Annapolis have helped finance parks, senior centers and community centers in Dundalk, Middle River, Woodlawn, Catonsville, Parkville and other communities. They also helped with important economic renaissance projects in Owings Mills and Towson.
In 2003, our delegation helped guarantee insurance for former Bethlehem Steel employees. In 2004, The Hurricane Isabel Disaster Relief Act brought much needed aid to storm-damaged communities on our east side.
Over the past three sessions, we have given our police department more tools for safeguarding our communities, made it possible to hire experienced teachers in our challenging schools, and made the quality of life in our communities even better than it was before.
The Baltimore County legislative delegation has gotten things done for Baltimore County, and gotten them done despite dealing with a significant deficit in the state budget. On behalf of everyone in Baltimore County, thank you.
What has been accomplished in Annapolis in the past three sessions is important, but no more important than the work we have in front of us this year. The State has gone from deficit to surplus, and we have an opportunity to put badly-needed funds in places where they will do the most good for our communities.
But figuring out how to do this will be at least as challenging as figuring out how and where to make the deficit cuts of past years.
This session we have an opportunity to make up for two years of underfunding of school renovation and construction. We can correct major problems in the group homes system, help the police fight the threat of methamphetamine, and secure the resources to make community improvements all around the county.
We can do these things if we are united, aggressive, and consistent in our goals for Baltimore County. There is extra money in the budget, but it must be used wisely, and in ways that serve the long-term interests of our communities. We cannot allow good policy to be sacrificed for the sake of political expediency.
We are fortunate to have outstanding 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 be aggressive advocates 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. I am confident that we will once again be able to use the time in Annapolis to further the renaissance of Baltimore County.
This year our first priority remains the education of our children, and the quality of the schools they attend. When a task force headed by State Treasurer Nancy Kopp examined the need for school renovation and construction funding, it reported that Maryland needed nearly $4 billion in facility improvements. The task force recommended that the State contribute $250 million a year to school renovation and construction. No one has disputed the need, and no one has disputed that the Kopp Report's proposal is the right thing to do.
And yet due to the budget constraints of 2003 and 2004, we have fallen behind. As more time passes our school renovation and construction projects grow more expensive, and the need becomes even more dire. This year, Baltimore County's total school renovation and construction request will be $110 million.
This year's surplus gives us an opportunity to make significant progress in our school renovation construction program. We are asking the state to meet the $250 million dollar for 2006, and appropriate an additional $150 million in order to make up for shortfalls in the past. This $400 million will put the state back on track to meeting its $2 billion contribution by 2013. The lanyards you all received as you walked in should be a constant reminder of this simple and critically important goal.
I don't have to tell you how old some of the schools in Baltimore County are, and we have a second important tool in our effort to improve the quality of our schools is the Aging Schools Program. The Program provides funds for all Maryland jurisdictions to help cover the cost of maintenance in older schools, and ensures that regular school construction funding doesn't have to be used for maintenance. Baltimore County has one of the largest and oldest school stocks in the state, and the program has been a valuable resource for us. But the State's funding of the Aging Schools Program has been stagnant for years, and it is not keeping pace with the costs of repairs. We are urging the state to include an escalator that will ensure enough funding is available to cover needed maintenance.
Baltimore County is fortunate to have an exceptional community college, one which helps prepare thousands of county residents both for higher education and the workforce. The Community College of Baltimore County has new leadership this year. Dr. Sandra Kurtinitis is an experienced community college administrator, and she knows what needs to be done to further improve the services available at CCBC. I encourage all of our legislators to support Dr. Kurtinitis and the community college in their legislative goals this year. The success of CCBC is important to the quality of life and prospects for success in Baltimore County.
As we work to give children the education they need for the future, we must also be attentive to the needs of kids in difficult situations. By now, we are all familiar with the many problems in Maryland's group homes system. We need to begin solving those problems, and the first step is to ensure that kids get the services they need in the communities where they live.
Too often, children are taken from their home jurisdiction and placed in group homes somewhere else. They are taken out of familiar surroundings, away from family support networks, and placed in homes where they know no one.
Today Baltimore County group homes house one third of the juveniles in state custody, and two thirds of the juveniles in Baltimore County group homes are from other jurisdictions.
To address the challenge this presents to our communities and public schools, as well as to better serve children who need help, legislation is needed to change the procurement process for group homes to a needs-based system that will direct the location of group homes and the availability of services to communities where the need exists.
We need to better serve children with disabilities as well. The Maryland Infants and Toddlers Program is a Statewide program that provides services and support to over 12,000 infants and toddlers with developmental delays and disabilities. In 2004, Baltimore County provided services to more than 1,800 children and their families.
While there is a statutory formula for funding the program, the law also states that funding is subject to the will of the Governor. Since FY 2003, funding for the program has remained flat, while the need has increased.
The Maryland State Department of Education's FY 2007 budget request is $11.9 million, which means they are asking the Governor to fully fund this important program according to the statutory formula. This figure provides the Program the funding it needs to fulfill its goals and obligations, and Baltimore County supports MSDE's request. It will double Baltimore County's infant and toddler program funding and ensure that families who need help, get help.
In the two years since the devastation of Hurricane Isabel, both the county and the state have provided valuable support to people trying to rebuild their homes and lives. Often, as we help them solve problems we find others that need to be addressed.
Earlier this year, the county passed a bill to grant property tax credit relief to victims of Hurricane Isabel. The State also passed a similar bill introduced by Senator Norman Stone. While the county's bill recognized the transfer of property from parents to children or children to parents, the State bill does not. Under the State bill, the tax credit is lost if the property passes from parent to child after the hurricane. We know of families in Baltimore County who will lose the tax credit benefit because of this failure in the law, and we are seeking legislation to clarify that the State law was never intended to exclude these family transfers.
After Isabel, nearly everyone who lost their home chose to rebuild in Baltimore County, and every day more people are choosing to make a life in our county.
They make that choice in part because Baltimore County neighborhoods are safe, in fact they are safer today than they have been in 25 years. Crime is down across the board and across the county. We have an outstanding police department, led by Chief Terry Sheridan, which continues to find better ways to safeguard our communities.
As the nature of crime changes, the way our officers respond changes as well, and the law must also be able to adapt. When drug dealers are arrested, they forfeit the proceeds of their criminal activity, which is how it should be. As the crime of identity theft grows more sophisticated, the stakes are higher for citizens, and they should be higher for the criminals. Baltimore County will support legislation to make the proceeds of identity theft subject to forfeiture, just as are the proceeds of drug crimes.
We also need to be aware that crimes like identity theft are often closely connected to other kinds of crime and other problems. According to an Associated Press article posted on CNN.com, local law enforcement agents in California and other western states point out growing evidence of the link between rising rates of identity theft and the manufacture, sale and use of methamphedamine.
Meth use is a serious problem in many rural communities, and a growing problem in many others. The drug is highly addictive, the labs where it is made are incredibly dangerous, and the people who sell it are as dangerous as any other drug dealer.
Our police department, and nearly every other police department in the state, is certainly familiar with drug crimes and the other crimes that come out of drug abuse, and we need to help the police prevent new waves of serious drug activity and reduce related crime. Meth has not yet reached the crisis point in Maryland, and we need to ensure that it doesn't. Baltimore County is supporting legislation to restrict the sale of pseudoephedrine, the key ingredient in making meth. Passing this legislation will help police officers better safeguard the people of Baltimore County.
To help the renaissance of our older communities, Baltimore County has committed to providing residents with the infrastructure, economic opportunities and recreational facilities that make neighborhoods attractive to families. Baltimore County partners with residents to identify needs, we use funds from county revenue, we get help from our federal delegation - help like the Federal Economic Development Initiative Grant Senator Barbara Mikulski secured for the Randallstown Community Center, or the money Congressman Ben Cardin helped us get for a traffic and pedestrian study in Towson. But State bond bills and funds from the State's capital budget also play a key role in our ability to keep pace with the needs of our communities. This year, we are asking for the state to help fund important projects around the county, projects which help every citizen.
We are building a new community center in Randallstown, working to complete the Heritage Trail and improvements to St. Helena Park, and moving forward with renovations and improvements at the historic Benjamin Banneker homestead. We want to make major improvements to Eastern Boulevard and Kenwood Avenue, and move forward with the Eastern Baltimore County Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan. Our bond bill request will also fund a park in Towson, athletic field lighting renovations in four communities, a pilot program for artificial turf athletic fields, shoreline restoration at Rocky Point, and funding for the Baltimore County Agricultural Resource Center, a facility that will serve schools around the state, the University of Maryland, the United States Department of Agriculture, the Soil Conservation District, and many others.
Our bond bill request totals $13.4 million, which will enable us to improve the quality of life in every community in the county.
Baltimore County's legislative priorities this year support the same goal as they have in each of the past three - the continued renaissance of Baltimore County. As always, the next three months will present challenges, and we will have to be ready to adapt. But I know this delegation, and I know what we can accomplish when we work together. Our citizens deserve better schools, safer neighborhoods, a well protected natural environment and communities that have the resources needed to raise strong families. I look forward to working with all of you to make certain that this legislative session continues to improve the quality of life in Baltimore County. Thank you for your support, and thank you for being here this morning.
Revised January 11, 2006
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