Adam Pagnucco, David Moon, Property Taxes, taxes

MoCo Delegates Kill Moon Country Club Bill

By Adam Pagnucco.

Montgomery County’s Delegates have killed a local bill proposed by Delegate David Moon (D-20) that would have eliminated a special tax break for country clubs contained in state law.  Seventeen Delegates voted to kill the bill while seven voted in its favor.

Under current state law, the State Department of Assessments and Taxation (SDAT) is permitted to enter into agreements with country clubs possessing golf courses that would set the assessed value of their land at $1,000 per acre.  Moon’s bill would have phased out these agreements in Montgomery County subject to approval by voters.  The fiscal note on the bill indicated that the state government would have received an extra $1 million a year in tax revenue and the county government would have received an extra $10 million a year once the agreements were ended.  Despite the fact that the county just reported a $120 million shortfall, neither the County Executive nor the County Council supported the bill.

Since it was a local bill, the bill needed to clear Montgomery County’s House delegation before advancing to further votes by the county’s Senators and the full General Assembly.  That vote took place this morning.  After two unsuccessful attempts were made to amend the bill, Delegate Kathleen Dumais (D-15) made an unfavorable motion on it, which is tantamount to a no vote.  Delegate Sheila Hixson (D-20) seconded the motion.  Seventeen Delegates voted in favor of that motion and seven voted against.  The seven Delegates who voted in support of Moon’s bill were Moon, Ana Sol Gutierrez (D-18), Aruna Miller (D-15), Andrew Platt (D-17), Jeff Waldstreicher (D-18), Shane Robinson (D-39) and Jheanelle Wilkins (D-20).  We reprint the vote tally below.  In reading it, remember that a “Yea” vote is a vote to kill the bill.

Share
Adam Pagnucco, Department of Liquor Control, Silver Spring

Co-Owner of Closing Restaurant Blasts Liquor Monopoly (Updated)

By Adam Pagnucco.

A co-owner of The Classics Restaurant, a Silver Spring steakhouse, has issued a statement placing part of the blame for his decision to close on the county’s liquor monopoly.  Co-owner Elliott Rattley said in part:

After some eleven and a half years, the Montgomery County Government has yet to show any support for the independent businessman in this area. Along with the onerous burden that the ineffective Montgomery County Department of Liquor Control places on an independent operator by their over the normal, for every local jurisdiction, pricing structure to support a bloated and antiquated bureaucracy, and the unfriendly business climate that Montgomery County in general creates, the continuance of this business is untenable. Of course, the loss of a Fortune 500 company directly across the street hastened this decision. (Discovery Channel)

Source of the Spring has the full statement.

In 2015, Delegate Bill Frick (D-16) introduced a bill that would have allowed MoCo voters to decide whether to end the monopoly.  An online petition initiated by your author gained more than 2,000 signatures from consumers, retailers and restaurant operators in favor of Frick’s bill.  County Executive Ike Leggett and the entire County Council except for Council Member Roger Berliner fought the bill and the delegation declined to pass it.  Seventh State asked Frick, Berliner, Council Member Marc Elrich and Council Member George Leventhal, all of whom are running for Executive, for their positions on the monopoly.  You can read their responses here.

Update: Patrick Lacefield, the county’s Director of Public Information, gave us the following on-the-record statement: “Our records indicate A single complaint ever (December 29, 2015 about an item not delivered).  Plus a $1000 fine for serving an underage person on December 5, 2013.  That’s pretty slim evidence.”

Share
Larry Hogan, Republicans

Hogan Republicans Run Trump’s Playbook on Russia and Election Fraud

Can we please stop pretending that Larry Hogan is some sort of goo-goo Republican reformer?

Yesterday, the Maryland GOP sent out a hysterical email railing against – gasp – foreign election observers of American elections:

Do you think foreign nationals should be openly invited into our polling places on election day? Democratic Senators Kagan and Rosapepe think so.

For all the complaints about potential foreign involvement in U.S. elections, Maryland Democrats sure are trying to invite outside influences into our elections…

Now, they have introduced SB 190 that would give an international election observers the same rights as a U.S. citizen to watch over our elections for any polling place in the state that they see fit.

This bill gives foreign nationals the right to:

  • Go to polls unsupervised and move from poll-to-poll
  • Enter the polling place one-half hour before the polls open
  • Enter or be present at the polling pace at any time when the polls are open
  • Remain in the polling place until the completion of all tasks associated with the close of the polls
  • A police officer who is on duty at a polling place shall protect an international election observer in the discharge of the duties of the international election observe
  • The election judge shall designate reasonable times for international election observers to examine polling lists

SIGN AND SHARE the petition if you believe the Maryland Senate should vote AGAINST SB 190! 

I don’t know who came up with this unhinged horror at a piece of legislation that should be so uncontroversial as to verge on banal. Foreign election observers are common in elections around the world. The U.S. sends observers to countries around the world as part of observation missions.

Indeed, the American government plays a major role in funding these initiatives through the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), the International Republican Institute (IRI), National Democratic Institute (NDI), Organization of American States (OAS), and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). All but the last are based in Washington.

Beyond the creepy weirdness of attempting to whip voters up over people observing – a word that specifically excludes any participatory role  – our elections, this is right out of the Trump playbook because of (1) its xenophobic attack on foreigners as somehow inherently nefarious, and (2) being resistant to any effort to improve the electoral process whatsoever.

Trump is impervious to protecting our elections from proven Russian interference in our elections because it helps Republicans. (Ronald Reagan must be rolling over in his grave.) Under Larry Hogan, the Maryland GOP shows similar hostility to the most mild effort to improve our democracy in their effort to whip up hate about a bunch of foreign election experts who will come here, observe elections, and write a tempered report with a few suggestions for improvement.

The Governor has just lost what little credibility as a reformer he had. He is willing to speak out against redistricting in Maryland, because he thinks it will benefit his party, but totally silent on Republican efforts to protect it north of the Mason-Dixon and south of the Potomac.

Yet he found time to travel to Virginia to support the odious Ed Gillespie in his effort to become governor using hateful rhetoric and scaremongering. Despite Gillespie’s flop, Hogan apparently decided to import Gillespie-type tactics.

If Larry Hogan’s Republicans were remotely reasonable, they would never publish something like this. The Governor needs to repudiate it immediately and replace the people in the Maryland GOP who came up with this piece of tripe.

Share
Adam Pagnucco, Endorsements

MoCo Endorsements: February 15, 2018

By Adam Pagnucco.

Below, we present a preliminary list of institutional endorsements for MoCo candidates in contested races.  These lists are incomplete for two reasons: first, several influential players (like MCGEO, the Washington Post, the Volunteer Fire Fighters and the Realtors) have not concluded their endorsement processes and second, many of those who have endorsed have decided on some races but not yet others.  That is particularly true of MCEA, holder of the mighty Apple Ballot, which has issued one round of endorsements and will be issuing another round shortly.

A few notes.

First, incumbents are cleaning up as usual.  Challengers, we know you think you can do a better job than them.  But the incumbents have cast real live votes and have relationships you don’t have.  Deal with it!

Second, a handful of non-incumbents are starting to rack up progressive endorsements.  In MoCo, the two who stand out are Council Member Marc Elrich, who is running for Executive, and District 3 County Council candidate Ben Shnider, who is challenging incumbent Sidney Katz.  If Shnider’s endorsements keep snowballing can he pull off the unthinkable?  Delegate Jeff Waldstreicher, who is running for Senate, has now claimed five major institutional endorsements against one claimed by his opponent, Dana Beyer.

And third, there are so many big endorsements that have not yet come down.  It’s still early so don’t carve anyone’s tombstone yet.  That is particularly true of the Council At-Large race, where only incumbent Hans Riemer is building a big stack of them.  The coming endorsements could act as a critical differentiator in a historically huge field.

We will be updating this list periodically.  We will not be including individual endorsements from elected officials or other prominent muckety-mucks.  (OK, maybe if Barack Obama gets involved, we will make an exception.)  And we will not be listing endorsements from tiny, piddly-squit groups that have never shown any game here.  That means if the Wheaton Beer-Drinking Bass Guitarists Political Club issues an endorsement list, tough beans! – we will not be running it.

To be continued.

Share
Immigration

Deportation Legal Defense is the Montgomery Way

By Seth Grimes.

Someone asked me earlier this week, “What is Montgomery County doing really well?”

My answer: We are a welcoming, compassionate, and inclusive community. That’s the Montgomery Way.

The Montgomery Way: Our $312 million Health & Human Services budget funds an array of programs that assist our most vulnerable neighbors. Our “inclusionary zoning” approach to land use has made the County an affordable housing leader. And we stand with our immigrant neighbors, including undocumented individuals, in the face of Trump Administration attacks and Republican congressional complicity.

Let’s credit County Executive Ike Leggett with shaping this ethos, which includes a policy of public-safety non-cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Yet attacks on immigrants are intensifying, nationally and here in the Washington DC area. We must respond. Let’s consider two ways we can strengthen local protections.

Montgomery County should fund deportation legal defense and pass a Community Trust Act that formalizes ICE non-cooperation as County law, a step promoted by CASA de Maryland.

Momentum toward these local steps has been building over the course of Donald Trump’s year in office. A start: I recall a productive Takoma Park Mobilization meeting with County Councilmembers Marc Elrich and George Leventhal last February at my office, to broach both ideas. (I’m a Mobilization co-founder; the Mobilization grew out of a November 11, 2016 Rally for Community, taking place the Friday after Trump’s election, that I initiated to show solidarity with immigrant and Muslim neighbors.)

Progress can take time, however; in the last year, the threat to undocumented neighbors has only grown. It’s time to act.

A Montgomery County Deportation Defense Coalition is pushing for action, for funding in the County’s FY19 budget. The Coalition’s argument: “Immigrants in deportation proceedings are not entitled to court-appointed counsel. This means that immigrants who cannot afford to hire an attorney must represent themselves. Per a nationwide study by the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, represented immigrants are 5.5 times more likely to win their case than non-represented immigrants.” Implicit is that it is our collective duty to stand with and support our neighbors facing deportation.

Public deportation legal defense funding could support and expand the work done by organizations such as Kids In Need of Defense (KIND), which seeks to ensure that every child in the immigration system has a lawyer. Ayuda and the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights (CAIR) Coalition also provide legal services to individuals facing deportation. We’re not talking about a new assignment for the County Attorney.

There’s more we can do. A new Maryland Legislative Coalition, working closely with ACLU PeoplePower, is backing the Maryland SAFE Act, currently before the General Assembly. SAFE stands for Supporting All Families Everywhere; PeoplePower is an initiative dedicated to grassroots action in defense of civil liberties. The SAFE Act, HB 1461, was introduced Delegate Ana Sol Gutierrez. It would limit Immigration cooperation by state authorities and provide immunity and indemnification for officials who do not cooperate. SAFE is another form of deportation legal defense. I testified for 2017’s failed Maryland Law Enforcement and Governmental Trust Act, and I support this year’s very similar SAFE Act in addition to local, Montgomery County action.

Deportation legal defense is the Montgomery Way, a set of concrete steps we can and should take to ensure that ours remains a welcoming, compassionate, and inclusive community. The Trump Administration is targeting our immigrant neighbors. Deportation legal defense is an important way we can stand up and fight back.

Seth Grimes is a candidate for County Council At-Large.

Share
Sixth Congressional District

Backlash Builds Against Baker Endorsement of Trone

Prince George’s County Executive Rushern Baker is experiencing a rapid backlash against his endorsement of wealthy businessman David Trone in his bid for the Democratic nomination for the Sixth Congressional District.

Baker announced his support for Trone two days ago. Today, the Washington Post reported that Trone, his family members and company have donated a total of $39,000 to Baker’s gubernatorial campaign. My own quick scan of Rushern Baker’s latest campaign finance filing revealed the following donations:

David Trone, $6000, 10/5/17;
Julia Trone, $2000, 11/16/17;
June Trone, $6000, 10/5/17;
Michelle Trone, $6000, 11/5/17;
Natalie Trone, $2000, 11/16/17;
Natalie Trone, $3000, 11/16/17;
Robert Trone, $2000, 11/16/17;
Anna-Marie Parisi-Trone, $6000, 11/16/17;
Anna-Marie Parisi-Trone, $6000, 11/16/17.

While David, June, and Robert Trone are described as affiliated with Total Wine, Natalie Trone is listed as a student and Michelle Trone with The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). All of the donations were made in October or November of last year.

Problems for Baker

There is certainly no proof of pay-to-play or corruption. Indeed, Baker has been a welcome breath of fresh air on that front in Prince George’s after the disastrous Johnson years. However, Baker’s decision to endorse in a race outside of Prince George’s has raised eyebrows.

In particular, I heard that senior women in the General Assembly are especially annoyed at Baker’s decision to endorse in the race when there was an experienced, talented and respected female legislator, Del. Aruna Miller, in the race. Baker’s wading into the race surprised many, as the Sixth does not overlap with Prince George’s.

Today, that frustration emerged more publicly in the form of a wave of endorsements of Miller’s campaign by her colleagues, especially many senior women. Miller’s campaign issued a press release (see below) touting support from:

Speaker Michael Busch,
Speaker Pro Tem Adrienne Jones,
Chair Emerita Sheila Hixson,
Appropriations Committee Chair Maggie McIntosh,
Environment and Transportation Committee Chair Kumar Barve, Ways and Means Committee Chair Anne Kaiser,
Health and Government Committee Chair Shane Pendergrass, Judiciary Committee Chair Joe Vallario,
Judiciary Committee Vice-Chair Kathleen Dumais,
Appropriations Committee Vice-Chair Tawanna Gaines,
Women’s Caucus Chair Ariana Kelly

It will be interesting to see if this backlash impedes Baker’s efforts to reach further outside the County. Similarly, I’m curious to see if Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett, a strong Baker supporter, endorses a candidate in the Sixth District. Unlike Baker, Leggett has long had constituents in the Sixth.

Problems for Trone

Baker’s endorsement has also revived talk of Trone’s use of his wealth. Two years ago, Trone told the press bluntly, “I sign my checks to buy access.” Indeed, former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell’s lawyers cited this statement in their brief appealing McDonnell’s corruption conviction. County Councilmember George Leventhal also needled Trone regarding his gaffe.

Now, as Michael Kinsley once said, a gaffe is simply when a politician speaks the truth out loud. Trone was forthright and honest on this point, in a manner similar to Donald Trump in presidential bid. But the similarities to Trump and the current concerns regarding the corruption of American politics are hardly likely to endear him to Democratic primary voters.

Aruna Miller for Congress Press Release by David Lublin on Scribd

Share
Democrats, MCDCC

Jordan Cooper: Local Democratic Party Corrupts Democracy

Last night, the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee considered several rules changes, including provisions involving conflicts of interest and the “Cooper amendment,” designed to prohibit candidates from running for office and MCDCC simultaneously. Today, I am pleased to present this response by Jordan Cooper.

On Tuesday February 13, 2018 the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee (MCDCC) voted to prohibit candidates from seeking election to the MCDCC, a partisan political body, while seeking elected office in government. The practice of simultaneously holding a seat in the Maryland General Assembly while sitting as a member of a Democratic Party Central Committee is long established in Maryland and is currently the practice with numerous members of the state legislature from other jurisdictions outside of Montgomery County. The vote of the three dozen individuals who sit on the MCDCC drowned out the voices of the one million people who populate Montgomery County.

It is worthwhile noting that the MCDCC subsequently voted to prohibit its own members from seeking other elected offices but that this provision would not apply to the current election cycle, unlike the first decision that is effective immediately, thus annulling the candidacies of all persons running for both public and partisan office simultaneously. The MCDCC elected to inequitably apply the implementation of the new rules so as to benefit those among them who are currently seeking a seat in the Maryland General Assembly.

More than half of the MCDCC’s current membership has been appointed to the body including all of its officers. None of these individuals have been elected into their current office and yet they are responsible for having effectively appointed one in three members of the Montgomery Delegation to either the Maryland House of Delegates or the State Senate. That’s right; individuals who were appointed to the MCDCC in turn appoint themselves to the state legislature. The MCDCC has effectively become a de-facto channel for bypassing popular election into the Maryland General Assembly.

One would be excused from concluding that the MCDCC is a self-serving body of individuals that seeks to control our government by eluding the direct election of our representatives. Their aforementioned votes indicate their contempt for Democratic voters in Montgomery County who are now being denied the opportunity to determine who, among the willing candidates, will represent them in their local Democratic Party.

This perversion of democracy is indicative of a deeply corrupt Democratic Party that undermines popular participation in our elections. This is the same Democratic Party that created some of the most gerrymandered congressional districts in the nation based upon the presumption that having more Democrats elected to Congress is more important than providing Marylanders with free and fair elections.

One can only conclude that it has been in the interests of the MCDCC and of the incumbents in the Maryland General Assembly to depress voter turnout so as to ensure that those favored by the Democratic Establishment prevail on Election Day. Incumbents in Montgomery County are re-elected at a nearly absolute rate and they are elected in off-year gubernatorial Democratic Primary Elections in which only 1 out of every 6 registered Democrats participates, in which participation is closed to all voters who are not registered Democrats, and which are scheduled in the middle of the summer while families are away on vacation. During the last election cycle in 2014 less than ten percent of the population of District 16, where I ran and where I am once again a candidate, elected the Democratic Party nominees who inevitably went on to win the General Election.

Low voter participation favors incumbents who have name recognition among “super voters” and candidates tend to target these individuals on the campaign trail, effectively relegating the remainder of the population to electoral oblivion. As an Area Coordinator for the past few years I organized phone banks and canvasses with elected officials that specifically targeted Democrats who had not participated in every election for the past few cycles. The MCDCC had pledged support but that support never materialized.

I stood up at the MCDCC event to articulate my interest in reaching out to disengaged and disenchanted Democrats while also seeking to drive down healthcare premiums and to reduce the teacher to student ratio as a means of addressing overcrowding in our schools. I explained my steadfast support of the Democratic Party and its candidates in Maryland since I first worked for the Maryland House of Delegates in 2003. And the MCDCC voted to prevent my name from appearing on the ballot this June in a manner that has been permissible for decades.

The only rational conclusion that one can draw from the behavior of the Democratic Party in Maryland is that it is corrupt and that it is in need of a desperate overhaul of its leadership, its objectives, and its platform. The Democratic Party should be one of inclusion that facilitates participation in our democracy. It has shown itself to be decidedly against popular participation in our electoral process and has consistently demonstrated its interest in anti-democratic and collusive measures that undermine our democracy.

Jordan Cooper is a Democratic Candidate for Delegate in District 16 and up until this vote was a Democratic Candidate for the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee in District 16

Share
Adam Pagnucco, District 18

We Can’t Tell Them Apart

By Adam Pagnucco.

On Saturday, your author attended a forum for the two Senate candidates and eight House candidates running in District 18.  (These are the sad things we do after football season is over!)  What did we learn?

Not a whole lot.

You see, while MoCo has plenty of demographic, cultural and economic diversity, it has little political diversity – at least among those who run for office.  Take the candidates on stage.  Yes, there are demographic differences – two are African American men and five are women.  Yes, there are differences in life and professional experience.  They include a former teacher, a former doctor, a non-profit executive, two incumbent Delegates, a Town Council Member and more.  But on issues?

Let’s see.  They all support public education.  They all want more transportation options, especially those involving transit, walking and biking.  They all want more abundant and affordable health care coverage.  They are all pro-environment.  They are all pro-immigrant.  They all oppose Trumpism.  They all pledged to run positive campaigns.  (Can you imagine if any of them did not??)  They all… well, you get the idea.

There is more political diversity in every barroom, every Thanksgiving dinner and every long line at the grocery store than at a MoCo candidate forum!

The District 18 forum at Newport Mill Middle School.  Photo by Council At-Large candidate Evan Glass.

Let’s be restrained in our expectations: no one “wins” these forums.  The candidates’ objectives are to show that they are informed and competent, that they are in line with the values of folks in the room, and that they are not banana cakes.  Upon demonstrating minimum suitability, they then meet some activists who bring up micro-issues they have never heard of while they smile pleasantly and try to avoid checking their phones.

How do candidates stand out?  There are dozens and dozens of them on the ballot – thirty in the Council At-Large race alone.  The volume of mail about to descend on the county could clear a tropical rain forest.  Is bio and life experience enough?  Will anyone ace all the endorsements (aside from the incumbents)?  Will anyone be able to outspend the others?  That may be unlikely for a race dominated by public financing, as the Council At-Large race is, in which many candidates will be raising similar amounts.  Will any candidate dare to be different when political conformity is expected and few wish to deviate from the norm?

As for issues, here are a few questions that will draw out differences between candidates.  Moderators should keep them in mind for forums so that attendees will win the struggle to stay awake.

Do you support rent control?

Should the county and/or state governments require project labor agreements on construction projects providing for union representation of all craft workers?

Should the private sector be permitted to compete with the county’s liquor monopoly?

Should master plans require infrastructure to be built as a condition of allowing new development?

Do you support tuition-free public college for everyone?

Should the county build M-83, the Upcounty highway from Montgomery Village to Clarksburg?

Should existing traffic lanes be set aside as dedicated lanes for bus rapid transit?

Should a non-partisan commission draw Congressional and legislative district lines even if it means giving more seats to Republicans?  (Just watch the incumbent state legislators squirm on this one!)

Under what circumstances should taxes be raised?

How did you serve the community before you started running for office?

Please moderators – puh-leeeeeeeze – try to draw out some differences between our candidates.  Because heaven help us, for so many of them, we can’t tell them apart.

Share
Adam Pagnucco

Building Owners Make Council Endorsements

By Adam Pagnucco.

A PAC associated with the Apartment and Building Owners Association of Metropolitan Washington (AOBA) has endorsed Hans Riemer and Marilyn Balcombe for Council At-Large, Craig Rice in Council District 2 and Sidney Katz in Council District 3.  AOBA is one of a small number of business groups that endorse in county elections.  Two others are the Building Industry Association and the Realtors; the latter are known for sending out mail promoting endorsed candidates.  We reprint AOBA’s press release below.

Share
Adam Pagnucco

MoCo Had Nineteen New Business Filings in 2016

By Adam Pagnucco.

Your author has been a corporate and economic researcher for almost twenty-five years.  During that time, we have encountered MANY crazy statistics.  Most of them can be thrown out in ten seconds or less as obviously flawed, generated by suspect sources or both.  But once in a while, even a crazy statistic can have merit because it comes from an unimpeachable source.  This is one of those times.

According to the State Department of Assessments and Taxation (SDAT), there were nineteen new business filings in MoCo in Fiscal Year 2016.  Not nineteen thousand or nineteen hundred.  Nineteen.

This stat came to light in connection with HB380, a bill introduced by Delegate Mark Fisher (R-Calvert) that would exempt new businesses from paying personal property taxes.  In writing the fiscal note for the bill, the General Assembly’s Department of Legislative Services (DLS) had to estimate how many new businesses are started around the state and the volume of personal property taxes they pay.  So DLS went to SDAT, which processes business filings as part of its duties.  All corporations and partnerships must register with SDAT to operate legally in the state.  SDAT reported to DLS that the state had 332 new business filings in FY16, of which nineteen were in MoCo.

SDAT’s tabulation of new business filings by county in FY16.

Could this be a fluke?  That’s a natural question to ask of any seemingly crazy stat.  Fisher introduced a similar bill two years ago (HB572) for which a fiscal note was drafted using FY15 data.  In that year, the state had 536 new business filings, of which fifty-seven were in MoCo.

SDAT’s tabulation of new business filings by county in FY15.

Let’s note that this data does not directly address jobs, the huge majority of which are created by existing businesses that expand operations.  But MoCo has been a weak job generator over the last fifteen years and in order to have existing businesses, new ones must be constantly created.  An anemic pace of business formation may eventually impact job creation.

According to the Census Bureau’s 2012 Survey of Business Owners (available through American Fact Finder), there were 118,965 firms in Montgomery County, 21,396 of which had paid employees.  Given those numbers, one might expect hundreds of firms to start up and a similar number to go dark every year due to the churn of capitalism.  But nineteen new companies in one year?  Bethesda Magazine printed a list of sixteen Bethesda-area restaurants that closed in 2016.  If only a handful of more businesses closed in the entire county, MoCo would have had net negative business formation that year.

Additionally, MoCo’s performance relative to the rest of the state was sub-par.  According to the Census Bureau, the State of Maryland had 531,953 firms in 2012, of which 101,876 had paid employees.  So MoCo had 22% of all firms in the state and 21% of the firms with paid employees.  However, MoCo had just 6% of the state’s new business filings in 2016 and 11% of new filings in 2015.  We would love to acquire historical data to see if this is a trend.

This data joins soft recent growth in employment and income as well as the $120 million budget shortfall, half of which was due to factors other than tax planning by the wealthy, as evidence that our economy is not as strong as we would like it to be to pay our county’s bills.  And because the new business filings were weak in many other local jurisdictions besides MoCo, economic growth must draw attention across the state as well.

Which candidates for office do you think can help turn this around?

Update, 4/25/18

This was not clear in the fiscal note, but the Department of Legislative Services analyst who wrote it has stated that the new business filings referred to in the note only counted businesses with personal property.  The analyst wrote in an email:

The SDAT data used in Exhibit 1 in the Fiscal and Policy note is for new business filings for those businesses with assessed personal property for that year.  The fiscal note could have been worded a bit more specifically to mitigate any confusion, however, the bill would have provided a personal property exemption for businesses with personal property, so businesses with no personal property would not have had an impact on local revenues.  We never asked for all business filings as the bill really only dealt with a personal property tax exemption.

Share

Maryland Politics Watch