LOCAL EVENT:

Expert Panel To Dissect The Maryland Budget

Featured participants include William S.Ratchford, who was director of the state's Department of Fiscal Services from 1974-1997; Nancy K. Kopp, Maryland State Treasurer since 2002 and member of the House of Delegates from 1975-2002; and Robert R. Neall, who served in the Maryland State Senate from 1996-2003 and in the House of Delegates from 1975-87 (and was Anne Arundel County Executive from 1990-94).

George W. Liebmann, Esq. of the Calvert Institute will moderate the program, which will be divided into six one-hour segments, three in the morning and three in the afternoon, covering the following topics:

• Budget Structure: The current structural deficit, rainy-day fund, reserves, spending affordability guidelines, capital debt affordability, mandated appropriations, legislating in the budget’, management of state debt, revenue sources and enhancements, sales tax options, income tax structure, state-local relations, business taxation and options for its restructuring, income VATS, cigarette and alcohol taxes, cost recovery devices.
• Government-wide issues: (with Donald Devine, former Director, US Office of Personnel Management) Hiring freezes, pensions, collective bargaining, health insurance, leave provisions, contracting out, prevailing wage laws, janitorial and food services, energy conservation, auto fleet, travel regulations, space leasing, property management and disposition, computer services.
• Transportation Trust Fund: (with Peter Samuel, Editor, Toll Roads News) Revenue sources, relation to the general fund, highway construction issues, toll facilities, road pricing, mass transit finance, role of local governments.
• Health Department, Human Resources, Aging, and Medicaid: (with Nina Owcharenko, Health Care Policy Analyst, Heritage Foundation) Mandated services, cost controls, pharmaceuticals, community services, foster care and adoption, welfare reform, drug treatment and testing.
• K-12 and Higher Education: Financing Thornton, "Thornton II," the single salary schedule, school construction issues, transportation, special education, the "umbrella boards’" the "historically black colleges’" scholarship programs.
• Environment, Economic Development, Natural Resources, Agriculture, Housing, Licensing and Regulation, Independent Agencies and Lottery: Financing of treatment plants, park acquisitions and management, agricultural preservation and cost-sharing, state housing programs, role of local and sub-local organizations, lottery options.