Maryland officials plan to spend tens of millions of dollars for another contract extension with a troubled prison health provider. The state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services is proposing to spend nearly $125 million to continue having YesCare provide medical care to the 20,000 people in state-run jails and prisons through the end of the year. It comes after the state extended the contract three months past the end of the prior contract Dec. 31.

There’s little historians know about Maryland’s early colonial past. So, when archaeologists in St. Mary’s City uncovered a nearly 400-year-old piece of battle gear last month, researchers celebrated. “This was definitely an exciting moment. Our eyebrows rose,” said Travis Parno, director of research and collections at Historic St. Mary’s City, told WTOP. “We were whooping and hollering. It was really dramatic.”

Senate leaders Friday said Maryland’s fiscal 2025 budget will continue to protect key priorities without the need for tax increases. The Senate Budget and Taxation Committee finished work on a $63.1 billion budget proposed earlier this year by Gov. Wes Moore (D). The revised spending plan is expected to be before the Senate with a final vote next week. Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) said revenue write-downs announced a day earlier will not require raising taxes this year.

 

 

An astonishing number jumps out of a recent story about overcrowded schools in Frederick County. One of our elementary schools is operating at 176% of its capacity. That is a scandalous number. Almost twice as many students are jammed into Oakdale Elementary School in New Market as the school was designed to hold. At a recent community meeting on the problem, Leigh Warren, principal of the school, said the most challenging side effect of the school’s high enrollment is the heavily congested hallways during transition times.

State Democrats plan to prohibit book banning, combating campaigns by conservative groups to remove books from public schools and libraries that are often written by or about LGBTQIA+ people and communities of color. Lawmakers are pushing for guardrails against challenges to books with content “contrary to the belief systems of a very small group of people,” state Senate Majority Leader Nancy King said during a press conference Friday.

The Maryland House and Senate are at odds over keeping the state budget balanced beyond fiscal year 2025. The Senate is sending the House its version of the budget bill on Tuesday. Amid decreased revenue projections, Senate leaders said the focus must be on growing the economy, not taking money out of it with an increase in taxes and fees. The Senate Budget and Taxation Committee is expected to advance the Senate’s version of the state budget, which is balanced through money transfers and the use of the state’s Rainy Day Fund.

 

Northwood Presbyterian Church is, in a sense, a kind of home. People have gotten married in the cinder block building. They’ve sat with their kids in the pews and watched the Rev. Chris Deacon deliver sermons beneath the stained-glass cross for years. But as the 15,000-square-foot church, which sits on seven acres on the edge of Silver Spring, Md., has seen its congregation shrink from 400 at its first service in 1958 to just above 100 in recent years, Deacon and his colleagues believe the church could be used to house people in a more literal way.

We thought the 2024 Maryland General Assembly session was going to be challenging, but we had no idea how bad it would become for businesses, particularly small businesses. In a sad case of premonition, when the opponents of the passage of the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future expressed concern about how the program’s out years would be funded two years ago, the supporters of the bill dismissed those fears as unfounded.

Maryland’s budget problems worsened Thursday with tax receipts failing to hit estimates for the fifth consecutive time since the pandemic ended. The news quickly ratcheted up the rhetoric among Democrats, who are divided on whether now is the time to raise taxes. Democrats, who have controlled the State House for decades and usually deploy a united front, are ensnared in a behind-the-scenes fight over how to pay for policies that are driving multibillion-dollar deficit projections not seen since the Great Recession.

Two of the biggest national supermarket companies — Kroger, which operates the chain Harris Teeter; and Albertsons, which owns Safeway — are seeking to become a single corporate giant. This proposed merger could have an enormous impact on Marylanders, affecting consumers, employees, farmers and small independent grocers. We want to protect fair competition, the rights of workers, our agricultural and small business sectors, and the interests of consumers.