Staff Reports

Veteran legislators (part 4): Sen. Delores Kelley, Del. Wade Kach

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Kelley

Sen. Kelley says her work at the State House is not finished

“I’m in the middle of it,” Sen. Delores Kelley said. “We are being productive. There is work that needs to be done. So I say, ‘Why not I?’”

Kach

Activism brought Kach to 36 years in Annapolis

“It is important that people who are knowledgeable about the budget, who understand waste and inefficiencies, be there the next four years to assist the new governor in the challenge before us,” Del. Wade Kach said.

Sen. Kelley says her work at the State House is not finished

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Sen. Kelley says her work at the State House is not finished

By Megan Poinski
Megan@MarylandReporter.com

Sen. Delores Kelley said she’s been involved in politics all her life.

She started out many years ago by getting involved with the Maryland Democratic Party. After working with legislators, she realized that was where the action was happening, and decided to run for the House of Delegates in 1990.

She thought issues were being ignored, and she thought she could do a better job.

Two decades later, Kelley, 74, is still in Annapolis representing District 10 in the Randallstown area of Baltimore County – now as a senator – and hopes to return in January for another four-year term. Retirement is not on Kelley’s radar just yet.

“I’m in the middle of it,” Kelley said. “We are being productive. There is work that needs to be done. So I say, ‘Why not I?’”

After a term in the House, she was elected to the Senate, where she has served ever since, gaining leadership positions and seniority. She currently chairs the Executive Nominations Committee, co-chairs the Joint Committee on Access to Mental Health Services, and is a member of the Finance Committee.

Kelley also serves on several boards, commissions and task forces for the state. These include the Interstate Insurance Product Regulation Commission, the Commission to Study the Title Insurance Industry in Maryland, the Continuing Care Advisory Committee, and the new Maryland Council for Educator Effectiveness.

Kelley’s legislative achievements are also numerous. In 20 years, she said she has had more than 100 bills that she sponsored signed into law. The topics of those bills are diverse, ranging from neglected and abused children to people with disabilities, from consumer affairs to regulations for new homebuilders. Since she has been on the Finance Committee, she has sponsored several pieces of legislation dealing with financial regulators.

“Some people specialize in one area,” Kelley said. “I’m more eclectic.”

She still has other legislation to work on. Kelley has learned through the years that sometimes it takes quite a while to get legislation through the General Assembly. She mentioned a bill she backed (with then-Sen. Paula Hollinger from a neighboring district) that required dump trucks to cover their loads when on the road -- a bill she said took 26 years to reach the governor’s desk. A more recent example Kelley offered is a bill dealing with powers of attorney, which she pushed for 15 years before it became law.

Issues she is still working include legislation to make sure that all contractual obligations are being met at continuing care facilities for senior citizens.

Atmosphere more partisan

Kelley said Annapolis has become more divisively partisan over the years. In her first term in the House of Delegates, “you didn’t have a preconceived notion of who to work with,” she said. “There were fewer votes that were right down party lines.”

One of the things that changed the atmosphere was the extremely close 1994 gubernatorial election, when Democrat Parris Glendening defeated Republican Ellen Sauerbrey by less than 6,000 votes. Kelley, who observed the vote counting, said a lot of trust lost between members of each party – and that both parties became “more caustic” toward one another.

Both this year and in 2006, she had a particularly difficult kind of challenger – someone with the same last name. Pat Kelly, as well as Stephanie Boston, are running against her in the Sept. 14 Democratic primary.

She said voter are already asking her to spell her last name. How does she surmount this obstacle?

“Cover your polls, and make sure your workers at the poll can answer those questions,” Kelley said. “I’m going to do some radio, and I am going to be sure to spell out my last name.”

Activism brought Kach to 36 years in Annapolis

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Activism brought Kach to 36 years in Annapolis

By Megan Poinski
Megan@MarylandReporter.com

Thirty-six years ago, a developer was building a shoddy development near Kernan Hospital – and Wade Kach decided to do something about it.

The Baltimore County Republican said that there was wide outcry among area residents that the developer was not following building codes. The developer refused to listen to residents’ complaints, and insinuated he owned the county and could do what he wanted. So Kach took the next step, and ran for the House of Delegates.

After being sworn into office in 1975, Kach forced more stringent inspections of the development, which turned up several building code violations. The violations were fixed, and the development still stands today, Kach said.

“Up to that point, no one was listening to what we had to say,” he said.

This began a long career of legislation to address issues faced by Kach’s constituents. His district lines and numbers have changed several times, and he now represents single-member District 5B in northern Baltimore County. (In the 1980s, he shared a three-member district with Dels. Bob Ehrlich and Ellen Sauerbrey, who would both run for governor.)

Kach, a retired teacher and school auditor, has sponsored several bills dealing with youth issues and the financial conundrums of the health insurance industry. Returning to the roots of his political activism, he has also sponsored several bills to reform the building and construction industry. A homeowners’ consumer group he formed inspired legislation that added more regulation to the custom home industry, as well as to license homebuilders in the state.

“Issues come up, and you need to have someone with experience to come in, jump in and help, and that person will be successful in helping them,” Kach said. “That is one of the reasons I am seeking re-election.”

One of the biggest problems ahead is a looming budget shortfall of about $2 billion next year. He and other GOP colleagues have a plan to cut $1 billion more in spending, but they need with the members of the new General Assembly to make those cuts reality.

Fiscal expertise needed

Kach has found other issues to address in Annapolis. He met with parents of children who were not doing well in school – and found out the children’s failure had a lot to do with single parents not being around. Those parents, Kach found, were sometimes working multiple jobs in order to make up for child support payments they were not receiving. He proposed legislation to strengthen child support laws.

In his more than three decades in the General Assembly, Kach said that he has seen Annapolis go from a place where most officials work together to a much more partisan and polarized atmosphere. Votes on controversial issues tend to be split on party lines nowadays, and attempts to work across party lines are viewed with increasing suspicion.

“You have to establish that you are there to solve problems, not to purposely come up with issues to embarrass the other side,” he said.

In one bipartisan move, it was Kach who offered an amendment to the 2007 constitutional amendment on slot casino locations that required them to comply with local zoning ordinances -- the provision that fueled the controversy over the site at the Arundel Mills mall. Kach’s amendment was adopted quickly by voice vote.

Kach said most of his nine re-election bids have been challenging. In this year’s Republican primary, he goes head to head with Chris Luciano and Tom Morgan for the party’s nomination to the single district seat. The winner of that primary will face Democrat Pete Definbaugh and Libertarian Justin Kinsey in the general election.

Kach said he has been out campaigning, using the Internet and traditional means to keep his message before his constituents.

“I’ve been there 36 years, and the people can recognize the hard work I’ve done,” he said. “The main thing for me to do is represent their views. That is why I’m there.”

Revenues were slightly higher than expected in fiscal 2010

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Revenues were slightly higher than expected in fiscal 2010

By Megan Poinski
Megan@MarylandReporter.com

Despite an overall decline in revenues, there was reason to celebrate at Wednesday’s Board of Public Works meeting.

“The good news is that we managed to outperform the catastrophic revenue projections that we were living under by more than $180 million,” Comptroller Peter Franchot said.

The state has a total General Fund balance of $344 million. Budget Secretary Eloise Foster said that the projections at the close of the General Assembly anticipated that the General Fund balance would have been $150 million at the end of the fiscal year, June 30.

But revenues are still dwindling. In 2010, Maryland collected 3.7% less than it did in 2009 – and $1.1 billion less than in 2008.

Revenues are still down for county governments as well. In the August income tax distribution to counties released by the comptroller this week, most counties received less money last month than in August 2009 based on projected tax collections.

No longer called a surplus, the state’s fund balance of $344 million, by law, goes into the state’s “rainy day fund.”

Franchot urged officials to look at the budget situation realistically.

“This is not just great, but it brings a great sense of relief to us because the figures have been truly devastating,” Franchot said. “But we need to keep this in context: despite the fund balance, we finished Fiscal Year 2010 with a revenue growth of negative 3.7%. That’s the third-worst finish in 40 years.”

Franchot said continuing this growth is not enough by itself to pull the state out of the current recession. In order to get back to pre-recession revenue levels, the state would need to grow revenues by 14 percent for the next four years, he said.

Gov. Martin O’Malley touted the numbers as the result of the state’s steady job growth over recent months.

“It’s time for Maryland to step up and be a leader and start the nation’s recovery,” O’Malley said.

Foster agreed that the increases can be attributed to job growth and an uptick in economic activity. In late spring, tax collections increased across the board. Between April and June, she said, $109 million more than expected came from individual income taxes. Corporate income taxes beat projections by $28 million, and sales taxes were $41 million over expectations.

“This is very encouraging, very positive news,” she said, showing the beginnings of real economic recovery.

The Board of Revenue Estimates, chaired by Franchot, will be meeting later this month to retool its projections for the current and future fiscal years. The board meets several times a year to revise budget numbers and projections based on actual finances and economic trends.

Staff Reports

Veteran legislators (part 4): Sen. Delores Kelley, Del. Wade Kach

Kelley Sen. Kelley says her work at the State House is not finished

Kach Activism brought Kach to 36 years in Annapolis

Sen. Kelley says her work at the State House is not finished

Sen. Kelley says her work at the State House is not finished

Activism brought Kach to 36 years in Annapolis

Activism brought Kach to 36 years in Annapolis

Revenues were slightly higher than expected in fiscal 2010

Revenues were slightly higher than expected in fiscal 2010

Kelley

Sen. Kelley says her work at the State House is not finished

Kach

Activism brought Kach to 36 years in Annapolis