{"id":10554,"date":"2018-05-21T07:00:40","date_gmt":"2018-05-21T11:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=10554"},"modified":"2018-05-20T21:47:07","modified_gmt":"2018-05-21T01:47:07","slug":"ike-leggetts-greatest-achievement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=10554","title":{"rendered":"Ike Leggett\u2019s Greatest Achievement"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco.<\/em><\/p>\n

As the primary election approaches and the six Democratic candidates for County Executive make their case, it\u2019s worth considering the incumbent they are seeking to succeed: Ike Leggett.\u00a0 The county\u2019s steady helmsman is approaching the end of a thirty-year career in politics and he deserves much respect for his knowledge, temperament and savvy.\u00a0 But it is Leggett\u2019s greatest achievement that sets an example for all who follow him and poses an important lesson for the next term.<\/p>\n

Simply put, Ike Leggett saved the county from financial disaster.<\/p>\n

When Leggett assumed office in December 2006, he was determined to cut back the rate of budget growth overseen by his predecessor, Doug Duncan.\u00a0 In his first budget, Leggett proposed giving MCPS $19.7 million less than its request<\/a>.\u00a0 That was still a $117 million increase over MCPS\u2019s prior-year budget, but it was a smaller increase than the schools wanted and the education community revolted<\/a>.\u00a0 The council worked it out<\/a>.\u00a0 The following year, Leggett proposed a big property tax hike which was mostly passed by the council.\u00a0 These events may seem unrelated, but they weren\u2019t: Leggett smelled trouble coming and he was battening down the hatches.<\/p>\n

And boy, did trouble come.\u00a0 In 2010, the Great Recession hit the county\u2019s economy and budget with a fury that no one in government had seen before.\u00a0 Leggett proposed what was then the ugliest budget of all time<\/a>.\u00a0 It included hundreds of millions in cuts and double-digit reductions in many departments.\u00a0 750 work years were reduced through attrition and position abolitions.\u00a0 A fire truck and an ambulance were to be taken out of service and four police sub-stations were proposed for closure.\u00a0 Employee raises were eliminated and furloughs were instituted.\u00a0 Healthcare for the uninsured was reduced.\u00a0 And Leggett proposed increasing the energy tax by $50 million.<\/p>\n

The Executive didn\u2019t sugar-coat it.\u00a0 In his press release<\/a>, he said:<\/p>\n

To those who object to these reductions, I have a simple message: I do not like these any more than you do\u2026 Hard choices must be made, and not just talked about, in this difficult economic and fiscal environment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And then, unbelievably, things got even worse.\u00a0 Revenues were written down twice while Leggett\u2019s budget was under consideration by the council.\u00a0 The county\u2019s FY10 reserves were literally dwindling to zero.\u00a0 Leggett was animated by two goals: save the county\u2019s bond rating and save as many county employees\u2019 jobs as possible.\u00a0 To do that, he was going to have to battle every group that helped him get elected.\u00a0 In the end, Leggett and the County Council worked together to pass the baddest budget ever, a $4.3 billion nuke bomb<\/a> that had the biggest county spending cut since the current charter was passed in 1968.\u00a0 And that wasn\u2019t the end of it \u2013 two more years of not funding collective bargaining agreements and fighting with the school system were ahead.\u00a0 But the bond rating was preserved and mass layoffs were avoided, laying the groundwork for recovery.<\/p>\n

This was the county\u2019s worst hour.\u00a0 It was Ike Leggett\u2019s finest hour.<\/p>\n

Leggett didn\u2019t do all this alone.\u00a0 The council stayed with him and all ten of them jumped off the ledge together.\u00a0 But as the Executive, Leggett\u2019s role was absolutely critical.\u00a0 He could have pointed fingers at Council Members who voted for earlier large budget increases, thereby blowing up the teamwork between the two branches that was critical to getting through the crisis.\u00a0 He did not.\u00a0 He could have papered over the problems with band-aids and said next year would be better.\u00a0 That would have been very tempting for Council Members to go along with \u2013 let\u2019s remember that 2010 was an election year.\u00a0 He did not.\u00a0 He simply told the truth and made the hard choices the voters paid him to make.\u00a0 And in the end, it worked out.<\/p>\n

Your author has had many policy differences with the administration over the years and the Executive is leaving significant unfinished business for his successor, as all Executives have done.\u00a0 But let\u2019s recognize a central truth.\u00a0 Leaders are not remembered for doing twenty small things really well or maybe not so well.\u00a0 They are remembered for how they deal with a crisis.<\/p>\n

Ike Leggett passed that test.<\/p>\n

And now we are charged with picking Leggett\u2019s successor.\u00a0 The economy is not healthy enough to pay our bills and the county is now resorting to quick fixes to balance the budget<\/a>.\u00a0 The entire Washington region is not as strong as it once was<\/a>.\u00a0 Most ominously, since the average business cycle lasts 5-6 years<\/a>, we are due for a recession during the next term.\u00a0 That doesn\u2019t guarantee that the next one will be as bad as the earth-shattering Great Recession, but it won\u2019t be fun.\u00a0 The voters are about to make a judgment on which group of elected leaders will deal with our coming challenges. \u00a0Bearing in mind the example set by Leggett, who deserves your support?\u00a0 There are important policy issues at hand, but on the personal traits of the candidates, here are a few ideas.<\/p>\n

Vote for adults.\u00a0 We will be well served by people who do their homework, take their responsibilities seriously and are willing to do the thankless chore of reading hundreds of pages of dreary, bureaucratic reports on everything the county does.\u00a0 People who are not interested in that kind of drudgery will not be equipped to make tough but intelligent decisions.<\/p>\n

Vote for civility.\u00a0 This is one of Leggett\u2019s greatest strengths.\u00a0 Sure, he will push back on what he sees as inaccuracies or misrepresentations but he preserves his ability to work with everyone.\u00a0 That paid off in a huge way during the Great Recession.\u00a0 Elected officials who blow up at others won\u2019t be able to assume a unifying role in an emergency.<\/p>\n

Vote for honesty.\u00a0 If someone tells one group one thing and then tells another group something completely different, be skeptical about that.\u00a0 Trust the person who says no when necessary and not yes every single time.\u00a0 And someone who tap dances all over the place on his or her record and positions is not going to be a reliable leader at crunch time.<\/p>\n

Most of all, vote!\u00a0 And do your best to make sure that the people you pick are ready to deal with the next crisis \u2013 just as ready as Ike Leggett.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. As the primary election approaches and the six Democratic candidates for County Executive make their case, it\u2019s worth considering the incumbent they are seeking to succeed: Ike Leggett.\u00a0 The county\u2019s steady helmsman is approaching the end of a thirty-year career in politics and he deserves much respect for his knowledge, temperament and … Continue reading Ike Leggett\u2019s Greatest Achievement<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[151,167],"tags":[1545,1549],"class_list":["post-10554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-ike-leggett","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-ike-leggett"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-2Ke","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10554"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10557,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10554\/revisions\/10557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}