Thank you so much for coming this morning . . . and special thanks to the veterans among us, for all your past support for the sound policies and programs that have helped Baltimore County maintain its economic strength as we now move through difficult fiscal times. We are as ready as anyone could hope, to weather the budget challenges we know lie ahead. This is due in no small part to our County Council and our returning state delegation.
We are here today to talk about what we need to do in the foreseeable future; what we need to do in the 2003 General Assembly session.
I've enjoyed talking with our County Council and our Senators and Delegates this past month. I have been listening to what you have to say. It is clear we all share a deep dedication to our County. I have met individually with almost all of you in the few weeks I've been in office, and I am convinced that even with our diversity of views and backgrounds, we all share the same vision: to see Baltimore County prosper; and to promote our County's quality of life.
Baltimore County government is in relatively good fiscal shape. We have continued to keep our local government lean. In fact, Baltimore County's general fund operating budget this year is slightly smaller than last year. We have continued to keep a tight rein on ongoing costs, increasing employee positions only to add police officers and other public safety employees, and to add teachers and other instructional staff for our schools.
At the same time, many exciting projects are underway all over the county, and especially in our older neighborhoods. Recently, during the House Speaker's orientation for new legislators, I was proud to show delegates from across the State the progress we're making in Middle River at Tall Trees, Hopewell Pointe and Waterview, all the result of State, County and private partnership. Now, if my timing is right, we are looking at pictures of other improvement projects throughout the County, including the beltway widening at Wilkens Avenue, Liberty Road improvements, and the Franklin Police Station now under construction.
These projects will improve Baltimore County's quality of life, but many problems still need attention. Our schools still need attention. We're facing a serious problem, and I need you to show the same unity and singleness of purpose that Baltimore County's delegation has shown in the past when it comes to fighting for school construction funds.
Our school construction request to the State for Fiscal Year 2004 totals $31 million dollars. But this year, after four funding cycles with significant support, State funding for Baltimore County's important school construction and renovation program has suddenly been nearly eliminated.
Even though we have the second oldest inventory of school buildings in the State, and more than 12 percent of Maryland's schoolchildren, State officials have recommended awarding Baltimore County less than $2.9 million out of our $31 million dollar request for school construction money. This recommended award is less than 4.8 percent of the $60 million in school construction money that has been recommended thus far for allocation statewide for the upcoming fiscal year.
Much of Baltimore County's school construction program is based on our need to continue renovating older schools. As you know, several years ago the Baltimore County Council funded a detailed study of all the County's school buildings. That assessment revealed that there were many County schools with significant heating, plumbing and electrical problems as well as inadequate lighting, falling ceilings, worn out lockers, and leaking and inoperable doors and windows.
The total estimated cost to remedy these problems was $560 million dollars. Baltimore County embarked on an ambitious program to address all of these renovation needs, starting with the elementary schools. Our elementary school projects are nearly complete, and we are starting on the first five middle schools this year.
We have relied on State funding to help us accomplish these renovations. Over the last four years, the State has contributed some $81 million towards our budgeted $300 million dollars for renovations. But now, suddenly, we have been told by State officials that our middle school renovation projects no longer qualify for State funding. Renovations at Dumbarton, Sparrows Point, Sudbrook, Arbutus, Middle River, Ridgely and Southwest Academy middle schools, totaling $17 million dollars, all have been rejected.
In addition, our request for funding of $6.7 million dollars for a new Windsor Mill Middle School has been denied at the staff level. State staff have disagreed with our School Board's findings that we need to add 900 middle school seats to the southwest part of Baltimore County. Their disagreement flies in the face of clear statistical data that demonstrate the need for these additional seats. Failure to construct these seats will prevent us from relieving crowded conditions in our west side middle schools.
We need your help to bring school construction dollars to our County. We are taking our case to the new Administration. Just yesterday, I brought this problem to the attention of Governor-elect Ehrlich. And this issue will be part of our presentation to the Board of Public Works on January 22. We must all be there on the 22nd to show the Board how our schools are being shortchanged. If the Board does not help us, we will be asking you, our delegation, to intervene. I want to follow through on our commitment to the communities that are expecting these improvements, but we're going to have to work together to do that.
We're also going to have to work together to nip in the bud an idea that has been floated in Annapolis that has grave financial implications for us: the confiscation of local income tax revenues. The State's budget situation threatens our fiscal health and our ability to meet our communities' needs. It also could make it difficult for us to help you with your priorities. In the past, Baltimore County's delegation has fought proposed State actions that would adversely affect our county. I am asking you to defend us once again.
As you know, the piggyback income tax is a locally imposed tax that the State collects. It accounts for some 40 percent of the County's general fund revenues. Because we rely more on our own tax base than on state grants, confiscation of income tax revenue would impact every local service. Education, police, fire, recreation - none of these services would escape the effects of this proposed state confiscation, which was an item included in the Puddester Commission's report.
This confiscation cannot happen without the General Assembly's approval. Most of you have pledged to oppose this idea. I hope that as a delegation you will present a united front in opposing it.
Economic prosperity and improved quality of life are directly affected by traffic. Transportation is key. A number of important road projects are now under way. They include the engineering for the extension of Route 43; construction of the Eastern Boulevard and York Road streetscapes; the widening of Philadelphia Road; construction of a new traffic pattern at the Beltway and Liberty Road; improving the interchange at Interstate 83 and the Beltway; and widening the Beltway from Frederick Road to Interstate 95. All of these are important to Baltimore County.
Three more critical projects need to move forward this year. We must widen Reisterstown Road from Garrison View Road to Owings Mills Boulevard, and we must widen York Road from Seminary Avenue to Ridgely Road. These two projects total $24 million dollars. Both are planned, but neither is funded for construction.
The third project is a new interchange at Interstate 795 and Dolfield Boulevard in Owings Mills. We need to begin planning that project now. It is critical to keeping pace with the needs of the Owings Mills area and any development of the Owings Mills Metro parking lot.
There is another issue of great concern that involves the local detention center. Right now, our County judges have discretion about whether to send inmates sentenced to between a year and a day and eighteen months to our local detention center or a state prison. We have heard that the State is considering increasing, to 24 months, the minimum sentence that must be imposed before an inmate qualifies for placement in a state correctional facility. This would force judges to sentence more inmates to local detention centers.
We need you to help us fight this change, if it emerges as a serious threat. The idea has not been studied or evaluated in any way to determine its impact on the criminal justice system.
And, most significantly for Baltimore County government, our detention center does not have the capacity to house these extra inmates. The expansion of the Kenilworth Drive detention center in Towson - half of which the State is paying for - is supposed to meet our needs until 2010. If the State changes the rules and provides state correctional facilities only for sentences of 24 months and above, Baltimore County's projections for jail capacity will be obsolete.
More than that, however, the State potentially will create a significant shortfall in available jail space at the local level throughout Maryland - generating an immediate demand in many local jurisdictions for state support for capital projects to increase local jail capacity that far outweighs any short-term benefit that the State might gain from increasing the length of sentences served in local detention facilities.
The State's proposed 2004 capital budget currently includes money to begin the design of the new Community College facility in the Owings Mills Transit Center. With this $350,000, we can begin planning the signature public building that will house a satellite campus of the Community College of Baltimore County and a new public library. We will be asking for your continued support of this important project.
Especially in these tough fiscal times, we are looking for ways to streamline government and save money. We are asking you to help us make an easy, painless change in the way the county lists properties subject to tax sale - a change that will mean savings to taxpayers. Currently, State law requires Baltimore County to list, in four separate newspaper ads, all the properties that will be subject to tax sale each year. This notice requirement costs almost $60,000 dollars annually.
Instead of relying solely on newspaper ads, which run up to 15 broadsheet pages in each edition, we would like to use a combination of advertising, the Internet, and the mail to provide this information to the public. Under the proposed legislation, we will be required to run four prominent, quarter-page newspaper advertisements informing the public of the tax sale and advising them of their ability to obtain a free list of all the properties scheduled to be sold. Anyone who requests a hard copy will get one for free; our County web site will also list all the properties free of charge.
Individuals whose properties are subject to tax sale will continue to receive information about the sale via certified mail. In tough fiscal times, every cost-saving idea counts. This one is a no-brainer, and we ask our delegation chairs to sponsor legislation to make it happen.
And once again, we are endorsing local bond bills to relocate the Irvine Nature Center and to construct the Odyssey School in Stevenson. These two requests were left unfunded in last year's State capital budget and should be priorities.
We are also asking your support for initiatives of Senator Dolores Kelley and Delegate Emmett Burns. Senator Kelley has been studying the issue of group homes and will propose legislation that is sensitive to the rights of those being housed and cared for - but that also assures communities that group homes meet certain appropriate standards. We will strongly support this legislation, and will ask for your support. Some of the proposed standards will require that group home operators have regular contact with the schools their children attend.
We expect responsible parents to sign report cards, visit teachers at least twice a year, and provide records from previous schools; we should also require group home providers to take responsibility and to do these very same things.
Delegate Burns is proposing legislation to allow speed cameras along Liberty Road. Our Police Department has looked at this proposal and thinks it would help control some of the dangerous driving that is occurring along this major roadway. Under the bill, violators would be subject to a civil fine up to $100; no points would be assessed. We will support Delegate Burns' proposed speed cameras as a pilot project - on Liberty Road only - in response to the recent number of tragic accidents there and in response to the community's desire for stronger enforcement.
This is not a year for grand requests. We want to maintain quality services, continue to renaissance neighborhoods and provide the infrastructure that growing communities need. We want to build our record of good fiscal management and maintain quality services. We want to ensure that certain critical projects move ahead. We want to protect ourselves against unreasonable moves by the state as it works to put its fiscal house in order. We want the Governor-Elect to maintain his commitment not to cut aid to local jurisdictions.
At the same time, we need to maintain the productive County-State partnership that has brought us so many good things. I want us all to be able to support the governor's budget. It looks as though slots will be part of his strategy. I've talked to him as recently as yesterday. We talked about a number of things, including slots. There is no definite slots proposal yet. I urge you to withhold any judgment on the issue of slots until we see the governor's entire fiscal plan. I really believe that we'll all be better off if we can work together to find consensus on this as well as on other important issues in this year's General Assembly.
I need your help in achieving a successful session, and I look forward to a strong, productive, bi-partisan partnership that will let us do the best we can for our citizens. Thank you for coming today. I hope you can join me now for lunch, in my office.
Revised January 9, 2003
Courthouse 