The 2025 General Assembly Session gets underway on January 8th.
Senator Karen Lewis Young
Frederick, Md (KM) Legislators could be facing three major issues when they come back to Annapolis in January for the 2025 Maryland General Assembly Session, according to Frederick County State Senator Karen Lewis Young. She says one is expected to be the budget. “We all know there’s going to be a shortfall, and we’re going to have to make some really tough decisions about new revenue opportunities, cutting expenses and a combination of both,” she said.
Lewis Young says lawmakers will probably be making some tough spending cuts to balance the state budget, and may not be in any mood for tax or fee increases. “Maybe programs won’t be cut, but perhaps will be scaled back. There are also a couple of fees that haven’t been adjusted in a really long time, and it may have been time to update them anyway,” she says.
Legislators may want to look into adopting combined reporting in Maryland which requires companies with headquarters in other states to pay taxes in the states where they have a presence, says Senator Lewis Young. Right now they only pay taxes in the states where their company headquarters are located, or other states that have combined reporting. She pointed to companies like Wal Mart, McDonald’s and Kohl’s. Lewis Young says she’s not recommending it be put into bill form during the upcoming session, but that legislators take a look at it.
Another issue lawmakers could be facing is energy. “Maryland is a net importer of power. We don’t even come close to generating enough power for our usage, and that is only going up as we start to build data centers, people use their electronic devices more and more for every aspect of life,” says Senator Lewis Young.
But she has been working with other senators on this issue for some time.. “We’ve been meeting every other week to come up with a coordinated package of ideas to address our energy challenges,”: she says.
Among the issues this group of senators are looking at are energy supply, transmission lines and data centers, says Lewis Young.
The third issue delegates and state senators could be tackling during the upcoming session is the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, an education reform package approved by the General Assembly in 2021. It’s designed to make Maryland’s public schools into a first-class education system. The plan calls for state funding for education to increase over the next ten years. But Senator Lewis Young says that may need to be scaled back. “We had some really aggressive goals. We’re realizing some of them are just not feasible in the time frame that we originally thought, and also there are financial considerations. So I expect further adjustments to the Blueprint,” she says
One of the pillars of the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future includes expanding no cost or reduced-cost pre-k with public private partnerships. “I don’t think anyone who is opposed to the idea of pre-k. But we were looking for private providers to participate in that. And the incentives just have not been attractive enough for private providers,” says Senator Lewis Young.
She says increasing those incentives probably won’t happen this session due to the state’s financial problems.
The Frederick County Legislative Delegation is holding a public forum on Saturday, December 7th at Winchester Hall beginning at 10:00 AM.
The 2025 Maryland General Assembly will gavel into session on Wednesday, January 8th.
By Kevin McManus