Testimony before the
Good afternoon, I’m
Nancy Soreng, President of the League of Women Voters
of Montgomery County, and as always, it’s a pleasure to come before the Council
and share the League’s perspective on issues.
As you know, we are a multi-faceted organization that studies and
advocates on many diverse topics. The
items in the budget that are discussed in this testimony were brought to my
attention by the chairs of the current League resource committees. They are not written in any priority order,
nor have we as an organization come, to any consensus on which issues are our
top priorities. Furthermore, we
recognize that there are many items in the budget that are as important, or even more important than those addressed in this
statement. What this testimony does
reflect is the thoughtful consideration of League members who have developed
expertise in particular activities of county government. Due to time constraints, I will only present a
broad overview and refer you to my written comments for the details of our
concerns.
Before I begin my
discussion of the county’s FY 08 operating budget, let me share with you the
League’s concern about the dire fiscal condition of the state of
Another general
comment relates to the difficulty of being able to grasp the real impact of
this budget. There are a number of new
or expanded initiatives put forth by the
The program measures
in the budget document are a good way to begin to evaluate, in a quantitative
way, the success over time of various departmental initiatives. In some instances, they would be even more
informative if those measures could be compared to nationally recognized standards. Does the Council ever ask for such
information in order to determine if we are adequately funding particular
initiatives? If so, could those
standards be published as part of the budget document?
The areas that are
covered in my written testimony are: the
Board of Elections, transportation, services for children and families, public
health, behavioral and crisis health services, aging and disability services, land
use planning, economic development and the Agriculture Reserve, and fire and
rescue services. As you are likely to
hear testimony from the public on most of these areas, I will focus my oral
presentation on the county agency that we, more than any other community
advocacy group partner with, the Board of Elections. However, I do urge you and your staff to
review written the comments I have submitted.
The
LWVMC has first hand experience through our collaboration
with the Board on registration and electoral issues and is also aware of the
assessment of the management processes of the Board performed by the
Moving Presidential
primary to the second week of February instead of March will result in
two budget impacts:
1) Election judges do
not want to start training before end-of year holidays. With 4 weeks less to schedule training, there
is a need for:
2). A winter primary
date instead of March is expected to result in loss of 10-20% of current judges
- partly from those not willing to serve due to chance of more wintry weather
as well as large portion of retirees who choose to be away from the county in
February. The need for casting a larger
net to recruit the approximately 3800 judges and alternates will require
When coupled with the loss of judges who do not return due
to ever-changing Election Day procedures, the League recognizes it may be
necessary to add two permanent recruiter staff positions, instead of relying on
seasonal employees.
Another local impact of a state mandate is the additional
staff time it is taking to implement the statewide voter registration
system. The additional staff time is due
to the following factors:
We support the Board in the need for additional staff time required to work around
these problems. We also expect the
County to support the Board in requiring the complete fulfillment of all aspects of the statewide voter
registration system contract. Would you
consider withholding payment for additional software development costs for
these reports because they were promised
in the statewide contract under Schedule J?
The implementation of “no-excuse” absentee ballots yielded
record use of absentee voting in the gubernatorial election. We expect this trend to continue in
presidential election cycle, especially when coupled with lack of legislative
action on addition of “paper trail” for electronic voting units for the 2008
elections. This will result in
We strongly support the full funding of the budget needs of
the Board of Elections to continue the high level of service and security
necessary to conduct our Presidential Election in 2008.
Transportation
Use of public transportation continues to grow significantly
and as the county continues to concentrate growth near Metro stations, we need
to expand transit services. One of the
benefits of high density areas is that they increase the viability of public
transportation. We support the increase
for Ride-On Services that is indicated on 50-2 and the initiative to “enhance
the quality, reliability and safety of Ride On”. Expansion of the call-N-Ride program for
seniors is applauded. The League also
endorses the replacement of older buses by new “clean” diesel buses and the
replacement of the smaller noisy buses.
We continue to support the program to enhance bus shelters although it
was not listed specifically in this year’s document. We could not tell if the long promised improved
information signs at Ride-On bus stops are included in this budget.
Last year’s county budget added funds to design a new southern entrance to the Bethesda Metro. This entrance would both aid current riders and will be needed for Purple Line/Red Line transfers in the future. This project must be moved forward into engineering, design and construction. It is now involved in correspondence between WMATA and DPWT. We urge you to do what you can to continue the momentum on this important project that you’ve already committed to funding.
League members, like many of you, are concerned about
pedestrian safety. It is likely that we
will be doing a study on that issue next year and will probably come to you
with more specific recommendations in the future. In looking at the snow removal budget, it
occurred to us to ask if DPW has considered working with their staff to
encourage snow removal techniques that don’t result in hazards for
pedestrians.
Services for Children and Families
The Tree House Child Assessment Center of Montgomery County
– a fairly new but long awaited
Please make sure that the $200,000 currently in the budget
to assure that implementation of the After School/Out of School study
recommendations of the Collaboration Council for Children Youth and Families (
The county has implemented a wide range of early childhood
services which continue to fill in gaps to make sure all children grow up safe,
healthy, and ready for school. However,
as the programs are successful, the number of participants and the
responsibilities also increase. The key
policy questions become how to increase access, for whom, and through what
strategies. Flat funding for this year
does not allow for necessary increases in staff for CHILDLINK, a phone line that is vital to
connecting parents with the services they need.
CHILDLINK needs a bi-lingual
counselor to connect with the
growing Hispanic population, many of whom are completely outside the
system. One phone call can make
referrals to several sources of help for a family, and “bring them into the
loop”. In addition, CHILDLINK has been
funded by county grants, but really should be incorporated into the regular
budget, to insure funding for the future.
The scholarships and technical assistance expenditures added
in FY2007 (which the League testified in favor of last year) have greatly
improved the quality of care provided for young children and we hope they will
be continued and expanded when possible.
We support the Universal Pre-K pilot program for 60 children recommended by Councilmember Ervin and School Board President Nancy Navarro which was proposed by Superintendent Weast some time ago. We would not support taking funds from other vital early-childhood services, however, and hope new funds can be found for this exciting program.
Public Health Services
The League supports the expansion of services for Montgomery
Cares Healthcare for the Homeless. In FY
08 we plan to do a study of health care and housing issues for
Behavioral Health and Crisis Services
The budget includes enhanced funding for child mental health psychiatric services, funding to enhance services to diverse populations, increased outreach to seniors and persons with disabilities to provide crisis services and avoid admittance into hospitals and emergency beds for the homeless. These are all critical initiatives and we encourage you to fully fund them. 80% of the Health and Human Services General Fund operating expenditure consists of contracts with service providers. Much of the delivery of psychiatric services occurs through partnerships with private providers. It is not clear how these providers will fare under this budget. Their service is very valuable to the community and an inflationary adjustment of “up to 1%” seems meager.
Aging and Disability Services
The League supports a wide range of services to the elderly,
especially those that help them to “age in place”. Therefore we were pleased to see the budget
include an enhanced Personal Care Program of the frail elderly, an enhanced
Chore Service program to help eligible residents remain in their homes and an
occupational therapist added to conduct home evaluations and facilitate
modifications that would allow seniors to remain in their homes. We also support the increased supplemental
funding for service providers to the developmentally disabled and funding for a
pilot Montgomery County Adult Day Care Program that will provide financial
support and respite services for family members.
Land Use
We just completed a study on the zoning and the special exception
process and expect to adopt positions to support the effort to revise the
zoning code to clarify the language, eliminate contradistions
and improve the ease of interpretation of the code. We believe that the special exception uses in
particular should be reexamined. The
study also revealed that members support the use of standards and licensing in
lieu of special exceptions for some uses, such as accessory apartments. This could result in some efficiency in the
process with potential financial savings.
However, members also noted that, to protect the public interest, such a
change in the process will necessitate adequate inspection and enforcement
which could mean increased costs.
Our recent study also indicated support for the increased
utilization of Hearing Examiners to streamline the special exception
process. We do have some concern about
the practice of obtaining modifications to special exception use conditions and
suggest that the council should monitor this activity. The oversight of special exception uses by
the Department of Permitting Services is a daunting task, but one that serves
the public interest well. We support the
funding the staff required for adequate inspection and enforcement of these
uses.
Economic Development: The Agriculture Services
Division of the Department of Economic Development has as its goal to protect
70,000 acres of farmland by 2010. It
should be understood that the current TDR easement does not provide this
protection. The easements should be
clarified to restrict non-agricultural development. In addition, the Ag Services Division should
work to implement the Building Lot Termination program. The past record of providing services to
non-traditional farming has not been strong.
We recommend more emphasis on this type of farming opportunity to
maintain the viability of farming in
In 2003, the Council mandated that the Soil and Water
Conservation District establish soil and water conservation plans for
equestrian facilities in the county. We
have not been able to obtain information about the establishment or
implementation of these plans. We
believe a report to the council on this mandate is in order.
Fire and Rescue Services
We support the addition of 22 positions to the Fire Code
Enforcement Section. We believe one goal
of our Public Safety personnel, both those with the Fire and Rescue Services
and those with the Department of Police, must be to mitigate the need for their
services by pro-actively working to diminish departmental call loads. (The goal, unfortunately not reachable today,
would be to put both departments out of business.)
Given that objective, we are
pleased to see what appears in the budget document to be a move to
increase the effectiveness of this Section; and, given the difference between
the FY07 approved work-years (48.6) and the FY08 CE Recommended work-years
(93.5) (page 42-3), it would appear that the additional 22 positions will just
about double the staff. However, no
place in the document can we find data that specifically addresses this point.
Additionally, we note that in the Budget Summary (page 42-5), the Recommended FY08 income for Fire Code
Enforcement Permits shows a 29.9% reduction. So although we have an increase in costs in
this Section, we also have a decrease in income attributable to the same
Section. It would appear that the income
decrease reflects an anticipated reduction in building permit applications in
FY08, though we note that no change is expected in Occupancy Permit
activity. However, the inspections
handled by the Fire Code Enforcement Section include "all new and existing
building fire protection systems" (page 42-1). In fact, according to the Base Budget Review
of the Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service prepared by the Office of
Legislative Oversight in February 2007, the Fire Code Enforcement Section
"performed 4,000 enforcement inspections of existing structures; 6,300
inspections of new construction; and, 10,500 inspections relative to fire
protection systems, permits and licenses" (page 68). If there is a fee for each inspection and
inspections are expected to increase, why then is there a reduction in
income? Does this relate to the fee
schedule? We are aware that our
questions go beyond the scope of the current budget document but raise them
non-the-less.
We remain concerned about the 8.2% increase in the FY08 Fire and Rescue Services Operating Budget. The increase in this Department's budget is far greater than the 6.7% increase in the overall county budget. Referencing the Office of Legislative Oversight's report again, we note that "between FY02 and FY07, a five year period, the approved MCFRS operating budget increased by almost $76 million, a 75 percent increase." We wonder how such increases can be sustained and if the Council plans to look at the ramifications of this Department's budget in the out years.
Conclusion
Adequate funding for public services is a top League
priority. We thank you for the many
hours that you will put in listening to comments from the public and department
heads, familiarizing yourself with the budget document and reviewing analysis
by OLO. As you know, this is one of the
most important activities of your office and we appreciate your willingness to
serve the county residents through this endeavor.