Budget talks start in Annapolis

Continued from Page 16 cludes Wor-Wic Community College outside of Salisbury — agreed to a request from Carozza and other senators to delay billing for the 2023 spring semester and allow families to set up delayed payment plans.

According to Carozza’s press release, trust officials have developed and implemented a temporary manual process for account holders who have submitted a Request for Account Support form in the meantime.

Hartman said from his understanding the issue started with the state changing vendors.

“That’s when new estimates or statements went out, the big difference,” he said. “My concern is that people, what they are entitled to if there was an error from the prior vendor, it certainly could’ve misguided some people.”

“But we will need to get to the basis of what people are actually owed and make sure that the obligations to these people are fulfilled.”

The initial concept of the plan, Hartman said, was that if a state resident was going to participate in a Maryland college, this plan would allow them to prepay their expenses.

“If you prepay it now, you invest in an annuity and it’s supposed to grow at the same rate as whatever it is you’re prepaying,” Hartman explained. “The first vendor that was holding the money, it put out some estimates that were far greater than the reality. If you go to a Maryland college, your tuition will be covered. The complication seemed to come in when people were choosing to go to an out-of-state college and were looking for their money so they can apply there. It may not have matured to the point that was originally projected from statements released by the original company maintaining the funding.”

Harman also received updates last week on his playground communica- tion board legislation, which would install communication boards for nonverbal children on school playgrounds across the state.

The fiscal note from the state estimated the boards would cost $800 to $2,000 apiece. Baltimore City’s fiscal note indicated $3,000.

Hartman stressed that there’s no need for an overly decorated board.

“(One) Worcester County elementary school just had a banner zip-tied to a fence, well under $100 to install it,” he said. “These communications boards to me are so important if you have a child on the playground who’s nonverbal. They help with language barriers, too.”

Hartman also met with Ocean City Chamber of Commerce lobbyist Dennis Rasmussen to finalize the chamber’s legislative priorities. He said one concern is new regulations possibly coming to protect migrating right whales. They’ve also discussed the workforce housing crisis and how to worth the Maryland Secretary of Planning and Community Development to find a solution.

Hartman also said there have been some interesting discussions on state budget projections.

“They’re decreasing a lot of the revenue estimates because of their concern of the downturn in the economy. I found that pretty spurring,” he said. “They originally created some projections in September which showed some downturn in revenue. I think what they’ve seen since then shows even a further downturn.

“So they looked at those and reevaluated in December and actually made those downturns in revenue a little bit steeper. It was a conversation where … certainly the goal of the federal government to lower the inflation, taking an impact as to what they’re doing. We’re expecting revenues to fall back for the next couple of years. I found it interesting that the state is forecasting that and modified it from September to December.”