Dear Friends,

The Maryland General Assembly’s 428th Legislative Session came to an end on Monday April, 11, 2011. I wanted to take this opportunity to share with you some of this Session’s key accomplishments.

Protecting our priorities
Throughout the great recession, the legislature managed the State’s budget the same way families manage theirs: by defining and defending our priorities and making cuts to other areas of the budget. We cut over $5.5 billion during the recession, and eliminated more than 4,000 positions from the state workforce, while fully funding our public schools and holding the line on tuition increases for working families.

Although the economy is beginning to stabilize, we faced another lean budget year. Working with the Governor, we cut the state’s structural deficit by nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars, while protecting our priorities:

·         Funding our Public Schools – Our schools have been ranked #1 in the nation for three years running, which is why it is critical that we protect the state’s investment in our classrooms. We restored funding for education cuts proposed by the Governor, and increased education funding over previous years. Public education continues to represent 40% of the state’s general fund budget.

·         Building and renovating schools – Public school construction was our priority last term, as we invested well over $1 billion in renovating and building classrooms. We continued our commitment to school construction this year, investing over $300 million.

·         Creating jobs and building infrastructure – This year’s capital budget includes $925 million for road repairs, library and hospital construction, school construction, and other projects that improve our quality of life and create jobs in the state’s construction industry.

·         Keeping higher education affordable - We protected our $1.2 billion investment in our public colleges and universities, which will prevent drastic tuition increases and help our students prepare to compete in Maryland’s increasingly high tech economy.

·         Protecting healthcare for low-income Marylanders - We cut the budget without cutting services or eligibility for services through Medicaid. We also budgeted an additional $15 million to help reduce the waiting list for services that benefit disabled Marylanders and their families.

In addition to these investments, we set aside $640 million in the State’s Rainy Day Fund and left an additional $50 million general fund balance – for a total of almost $700 million in reserve.

Putting our pension system on the path to sustainability
States around the nation are struggling with the costs of pensions and retiree healthcare. Maryland is not immune from this national trend. Pension costs doubled over the past five years, and they are projected to quadruple over the next decade. If we ignored the problem, we would face $1.2 billion in pension costs within three years – making our pension costs equal to our entire investment in higher education.

Many of our sister states are taking draconian steps, including eliminating defined benefit pensions and gutting retiree healthcare. We chose to defend a defined benefit system, to protect our retirees’ existing benefits, and to ask our employees to contribute slightly more to their retirement, in order to put our pension system on a path to sustainability that is fair to employees, retirees and taxpayers. Through our actions and reforms, we will be reinvesting up to $300 million a year in our pension system to ensure that the pension promises we are making to our teachers and our employees are promises we can keep.

Investing in job creation
Maryland employers created 36,000 jobs last year, and our state’s unemployment rate remains two points below the national average. These are encouraging signs as we emerge from the recession, but we need to do more to stimulate growth in our knowledge-based economy.

Working with the Governor, we created Invest Maryland – a public-private partnership that will infuse $75 million in capital investments into our business sector, fueling innovation and job creation. In addition, we extended the State’s successful biotechnology and film production tax credits, two programs proven to create jobs and stimulate growth in our State’s economy.

Protecting Maryland’s children
Maryland’s Child Protective Services received 14,000 reports of neglect in 2010. They confirmed over 4,000 cases, yet, under Maryland law, prosecutors could not act on any of these cases until a child suffered a physical injury or death. While our primary goal is to address child neglect through education and social services, there are cases where neglect is so unspeakable as to require criminal prosecution. We gave our prosecutors better tools to protect our most vulnerable children by making child neglect a crime.

Maryland has some of the nation’s toughest laws against child sexual predators. We continued to lead on this issue this year, closing loopholes in the definition of sexual abuse, making sure that those who solicit sex of a minor in a sting must register as sex offenders, and tightening up reporting requirements for juveniles.

In recent years, we have passed tough restrictions on dangerous chemicals in ordinary household products. We continued our work this year, expanding the State’s ban on the sale of items containing bisphenol-A (BPA) to infant formula in a container which contains more than trace amounts of the chemical.

Respecting our Military families
In response to the Westboro Baptist Church’s protest at a young military man’s funeral and to the recent Supreme Court decision holding that the Church’s words and actions fall under the purview of constitutionally protected free speech, the Maryland General Assembly took action to protect military families. We passed legislation that increases the distance within which a person is prohibited from engaging in picketing activities at a funeral, burial, memorial service, or funeral procession from 100 feet to 500 feet to allow for proper respect for the mourners while not going against the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Targeting prescription drug abuse
Communities across the state are facing a quiet epidemic of prescription drug abuse, as oxycontin, oxycodone and vicodin become the drug of choice in many suburban and rural communities. Unfortunately, many Marylanders gain access to these prescriptions through their physicians. To address this problem, we created a prescription drug-monitoring program that balances a patient’s right to privacy against the community’s interest in rooting out and cracking down on prescription drug abuse.

Protecting working people
During the recession, many Marylanders fell victim to predatory lending scams. Many more lost their jobs and fell behind on mortgage payments. Now, as these people are trying to get back into the workforce, they are finding their credit history coming back to haunt them. This year, we prohibited employers from using credit history as a determining factor in hiring decisions, while providing safeguards for small businesses and employers in fields where a credit check matters. This common sense step will tear down an obstacle to employment for many Marylanders who are looking for work.

Maryland’s economy is beginning to grow, but many people are still looking for work. We passed legislation to extend unemployment benefits by 13 weeks to Marylanders who have received benefits for more than one year. By taking advantage of federal funds, this extension will inject an additional $280 million into state’s economy without costing our general fund. The passage of this law will ensure that unemployed Marylanders will have the time and resources to sustain them as they work to find a job.

Keeping communities safer
We took steps to make communities safer by giving prosecutors better tools to keep repeat violent offenders off the street. We passed tougher sentencing options for felons in possession of a firearm who had previous convictions for a crime of violence or drug felony. We also closed a loophole that exempted rifles and shotguns. In addition, we strengthened the punishments for those who remove or alter the identification information on ammunition. The passage of these bills will allow law enforcement officials to keep our streets safer.

Cracking down on drunk driving is a necessity to making our communities safer. This year we passed legislation to mandate ignition interlocks for repeat offender drunk drivers. This additional safeguard is necessary for these egregious offenders who are causing danger and harm to all Marylanders.

Controlling healthcare costs and expanding coverage
After the President signed federal healthcare reform into law, the challenge of implementing it shifted to the states. We worked with the Lieutenant Governor and stakeholders to create a health benefit exchange which will help low-income Marylanders and small businesses access federal subsidies and tax credits. According to independent studies, health care reform will save Maryland taxpayers over $800 million over ten years, and will ultimately extend health insurance to 350,000 Marylanders.

Protecting the health of the Bay
The health of the Bay is critical to the future health of Maryland’s environment and economy. Two of the major causes of the failing health of the Bay are phosphorus and nitrogen runoff from the use of fertilizer. These chemicals can deplete the amount of oxygen in the Bay and cause a rise in the acidity levels, causing major damage. This year, we passed legislation which will set a maximum limit for the amount of these chemicals to be contained in certain fertilizers, and require fertilizers to be properly labeled so consumers know what they are purchasing.

Reforming government and elections
The Maryland Senate has a proven record of fighting for transparency in the legislative process. We continued this trend by creating a Joint Committee on Transparency and Open Government, which will expand legislative oversight in this area and work to harness new technologies to make government more accessible and accountable to the people of Maryland.

During the 2010 elections, numerous outside interest groups spent money to try to influence campaigns at the state and local levels. Under existing law, they could make these independent expenditures without ever reporting a nickel of their spending. We increased transparency by becoming the 45th state to require independent expenditures to be reported, and we became the first state in the nation to require corporations that make independent expenditures to notify their shareholders of their spending.

I appreciate your input on these and any subjects as I can best serve Charles County when I hear from you about the issues that matter in our community. If you have any thoughts, ideas, questions or concerns please do not hesitate to contact me. You can reach my Annapolis office at 301-858-3616 or 410-841-3616 or by email at thomas.mclain.middleton@senate.state.md.us.

Sincerely,

Senator Thomas “Mac” Middleton