Commentary

Packing up and moving to a new state, enrolling your kids in a new school – sometimes in the middle of the school year — finding new pediatricians and dentists, applying for a new job with a résumé dotted with positions scattered in cities across the country. You’re doing it all while supporting a spouse in active-duty service.

As the CEO of Baltimore Collegiate School for Boys, I am compelled to address a matter of utmost importance: the pivotal role that early education plays in shaping the future of many African American boys and safeguarding them from the perils of life on the streets and the criminal justice system. Last year, our school community was rocked when one of our alumni, Jeremiah Brogden, at the time a sophomore at Mervo High School, was gunned down by another student. The unfortunate fact is occurrences like these happen far too often to Black and brown boys in Baltimore and beyond.

A new nursing program at McDaniel College in Westminster, available starting this fall, is aiming to help address the nursing shortage in Carroll County, according to a college news release. Initial approval from the Maryland Board of Nursing was announced earlier this month. Approval from the other relevant state entity, the Maryland Higher Education Commission, was granted last April.

Gov. Wes Moore has backed off a bit from the draconian cuts he was threatening to transportation funding, and while the changes leave in place the worst reductions, there are still some things to like. First, what we dislike: There is still no construction funding for the widening of U.S. 15 through the city of Frederick, which remains the top priority for both the city and the county, as well as every person who needs to drive that dangerously overcrowded highway.

Gov. Wes Moore’s proposed fiscal year 2025 state budget, which was released on Jan. 18, includes the fourth largest cut to community colleges in the history of the Cade Funding formula, a $22 million reduction. According to the calculations in the Budget Reconciliation and Financing Act (BRFA), Garrett College would receive a 21% reduction from the previous year and many other community colleges would receive double digit decreases as well.

Baltimore and Cleveland face similar challenges caused by the loss of jobs and decreases in population. Those challenges include a surplus of office space in the downtown business districts and a large inventory of vacant and abandoned properties. Cleveland, however, has done a far better job than Baltimore in meeting those challenges.

Despite last week’s announcement of a one-year infusion of cash, Maryland is wrestling with a projected $3.15 billion dollar transportation budget shortfall, exacerbated by the end of federal COVID-era support for transportation operations, overreliance on gas tax when vehicles are becoming more efficient, inflation, and more. The Moore administration recently proposed to balance the six-year transportation budget with 8% across-the-board cuts to all the agencies within the Maryland Department of Transportation.

When it’s time to talk about Baltimore’s economic revival, the conversation often starts with the big. Take the proposed redevelopment of Harborplace, the ongoing efforts at Baltimore Peninsula and the continued growth of the Helen Delich Bentley Port of Baltimore: big buildings, big cranes, and big stacks of cargo containers like pancakes on a dinner plate (mmm, pancakes). These things are identifiable, often controversial and any one of them may involve hundreds of new jobs — a veritable buffet spread of economic opportunity. (And who doesn’t like a good buffet?) Yet too easily ignored may be another potential driver of opportunity that’s on the smaller side, the small business side.