News From Annapolis
Delegate Trent Kittleman - District 9A
Week 4
February 7-11, 2022
Contents
  • Big Tax Increase Coming soon to your neighborhood. . .
  • My bills
  • Focus on Education: Parents Need Choices
  • Bad Bill of the Week
  • Legislative Scholarship Application
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. . .the Legislature passes HB-144!
If you think the price of gas is bad now, just wait until July 1st. That's when the Maryland gas tax will increase probably by more than 10 cents a gallon.

No, the legislature hasn't passed a bill to raise the gas tax since 2013. But in 2013, HB1515 was signed into law by the-governor O'Malley indexing the Maryland gas tax to the Consumer Price Index (inflation). The bill passed the House and the Senate by the following votes:
Back in 2013, the federal government imposed an 18.4 cents per gallon (CPG) on gasoline, and Maryland imposed 5 CPG, for a total 23.4 cent tax on each gallon of gas. Over the years since 2013, Maryland's gas tax has grown steadily:
 YEAR - Cents Per Gallon
  • 2013 - .05
  • 2014 - .0724 *
  • 2015 - .0948 *
  • 2016 - .1172 *
  • 2017 - .1369 *
  • 2018 - .1593 *
  • 2019 - .162
  • 2020 - .212
  • 2021 - .262
  • 2022 - .361
*The specific increases from 2014 to 2018 are not exact, but add up to the total increase between 2013 and 2019.
During the years 2013 through 2019, low inflation kept the increases in the gas tax fairly small. During those years, Maryland's gas tax rate increased just over 10 cents per gallon.

Today, inflation is the worst its been in 40 years.

Between 2019 and today, the price of the Maryland TYAX on GAS has jumped almost 20 cents per gallon!

Today, the TOTAL tax on gas (state & federal) is .361 + .184. =
54.5 cents per gallon.
Today, the price before retail taxes was $2.04 in the first 11 months of 2021, up from $1.23 in 2020; $1.75 in 2019; and $1.9 in 2018. Back when the bill indexing the tax was passed, the price before tax was $2.84
At 36.1 cents per gallon, Marylanders are paying an average $5.40 in Maryland gas taxes alone, for a 15 gallon fill-up.

As inflation grows, so do the increases in our Maryland gas tax. Last year alone, the the tax increased by almost 10 cents . With no sign that inflation is going anywhere but up, the increase this year will exceed another 10 cents, adding another $1.50 per 15-gallon fill-up.
HB 144 / SB 337 Motor Fuel Tax Rates – Consumer Price Index Adjustment – Repeal
This bill repeals any future automatic increases in the gas tax. Hearings on the cross-filed bills have already occurred, but neither committee has allowed a vote.
CONTACT YOUR DELEGATES AND LET THEM KNOW YOU DON'T WANT HIGHER GAS TAXES: PASS HB-144!
Below are the members of the Ways & Means Committee.
Delegate Vanessa Atterbeary is the Chair: she decides what bills get a vote and what bills don't!
The most effective contact is to your own delegate.
Dalya Attar, District 41
Vanessa E. Atterbeary, District 13**
Darryl Barnes, District 23
Joseph C. Boteler III, District 8
Chanel A. Branch, District 45
Jason C. Buckel, District 1-B
Nick Charles, District 25
Eric D. Ebersole, District 12
Jessica M. Feldmark, District 12
Michael Griffith, District 35-B
Michele J. Guyton, District 42-B
Wayne A. Hartman, District 38-C
Kevin B. Hornberger, District 35-A
R. Julian Ivey, District 47-A
Dana C. Jones, District 30-A
Mary Ann Lisanti, District 34-A
Robert B. Long, District 6
Eric G. Luedtke, District 14
Edith J. Patterson, District 28
Julie Palakovich Carr, District 17
April R. Rose, District 5
Alonzo T. Washington, District 22
Jheanelle K. Wilkins, District 20
Whenever any of my bills are scheduled for a hearing, I'll include information on how you can participate.

Next Friday, Feb. 25th, The Ways & Means Committee is having a hearing on a number of bills related to education -- including my bill, HB 950, Civics Education Award Program.
Scheduled for a Hearing
The screen shot above gives the order in which the bills for that day will be heard, but IT MAY CHANGE! Be sure to check this site the day before the hearing.
HB 950 - Civics Education Award Program

HEARING DATE: February 25th 2022
TIME: 12 Noon
COMMITTEE: Ways & Means

(Click here for information on the hearing, how to participate)

DESCRIPTION: The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services administers a civics test that immigrants must pass to become Americans. Immigrants pass at a rate of 95%. Americans pass at a rate of 66%.

This bill offers forty $1,000 scholarship to high school seniors chosen by lottery from among all of the seniors who choose to take the 100-question short-answer, multiple choice test and are among the top scorers.
My Bills
No hearing fates within 2 weeks
HB 938 - Education - School Accountability - Parent Empowerment and Choice
This bill authorizes parents of students who are attending a failing public school to petition their County Board of Education that is not meeting State accountability goals, to implement an "intervention strategy."

Intervention strategies include implementing things such as: a restart model, a school closure model, or an educational choice model such as BOOST scholarship or an Educational Savings Account program.
HB 949 - Campaign Finance Reports - Prohibition on Disclosure
HEARING DATE: March 8, 2022
COMMITTEE: Ways & Means
DESCRIPTION: Current law requires candidates to publicly disclose the identity of contributors and the amount of contributions. 

This bill amends the law so that the required reports are treated as confidential information, available on a need-to-know basis and not subject to public inspection under the Public Information Act. 

This change is necessary because disclosing whose campaign a person contributed to is tantamount to disclosing who the contributor is likely to vote for, thus public disclosure undermines the right to a secret ballot. 

The secret ballot provision is to protect voters from being subject to undue pressure or potential retaliation by political candidates and elected officials.
HB 976 - Spending Mandates - Three-Fifths Vote and Limited Duration Requirement
Although the governor drafts the budget, the legislature has the power to pass legislation mandating that the governor include the cost of the legislation -- often many millions of dollars -- in the budget.

Currently, more than 83% of the state budget is already mandated, leaving only 17% of the total budget to fund the rest of the government.

This bill would require any bill that includes a funding mandate must (1) be passed by at least a three-fifths vote in each house, and (2) sunset after four years.
HB 977: Prevailing Wage Rates - Public School Construction -- Moratorium
Current law requires contractors who do business with the state to pay their employees a minimum of the "prevailing wage," which turns out to be the union wage rate.


This bill would place a moratorium on applying the prevailing wage requirement on school construction contracts for a period of five years, thus saving the state -- and counties -- a considerable amount of money, all of which could be used to build more schools.
HB 1045: Primary & Secondary Education - Enrollment Count -- Average Daily Attendance
The State appropriates money for schools on a per-pupil basis. Currently, the count is taken one one day -- on September 30.

This method often overstates the number of students attending a school, resulting in the state paying for hundreds of "ghost" students.

This bill would base funding on the average daily attendance between the 1st of January to the end of the school year.
For many years, Marylanders were told that our schools were exceptional, as evidenced by our yearly rankings in the top five. The Kirwan commission is to be congratulated for looking at reality rather than hype. Here is what the Report said:

"When it comes to actual learning outcomes, Maryland's public education system is a long way from performing at the level of the best in the world or even the best in the United States."
Just how bad Maryland's K-12 education system is was encapsulated in a statement by a Kirwan Commission member who described it this way:

  • "Education in Maryland is handicapped by . . . archaic, inequitable yet rigid “local control” structure that denies Marylanders a fair, uniform and high-quality education, that denies the state the authority to intervene in chronically failing schools and districts, that denies school leaders the authority to make essential decisions, and that denies families the right to place their children in the schools that will best serve them."
Yet for all the work done by the Kirwan Commission, over three years of study, numerous hearings, the advice of experts, and a $32 Billion implementation budget, the Commission omitted the single best (and least expensive) solution to improving schools: COMPETITION through SCHOOL CHOICE.
"Children and parents should be especially troubled -- as I am -- by the Commission's refusal to endorse or recommend any form of school choice, whether within and between districts, to charter schools, or to private and alternative schools."
Individual Member Statement
January 2019 Report, p. 152
A Washington Post editorial, published on March 9, 2019 and titled "Maryland still has no idea how to fix its public schools," expressed a certain skepticism about the Commission's deliberate decision to ignore school choice options: "While there certainly are praiseworthy aspects to the commission’s findings - - - it is disappointing there was no nod to providing choice to students trapped in failing schools"
School choice is a major part of the educational system in states showing the most success in educating their students. There is a cornucopia of studies and other scholastic evidence proving the advantages of pairing school choice with public schools.

The foremost expert on the positive effects of competition on public education is Stanford Professor, Caroline Hoxby, who has said, “If every school in the nation were to face a high level of competition both from other districts and from private schools, students’ level of learning would be 28 percent higher than it is now"
Why don't we have School Choice?
"To realize similar gains in the quality of Maryland schools, however, major political obstacles must be overcome. The state’s Education Industry Complex is its most powerful special interest group; it rewards its minions in the legislature – many of whom were once themselves teachers or members of the ed bureaucracy – with generous campaign contributions and large blocs of votes if they support the status quo and spanks them for any deviation from the party line."

More next week.

Quotations in this section are taken from:
Maryland Public Policy Institute
"Fixing Maryland's School Monopolies"
by Stephen J.K. Walters
January 12, 2021
PROJECT BALTIMORE has been reporting for 5 years on the failure of the Baltimore City Public Schools to educate hundreds and hundreds of their children. I urge you to watch this video.
"If there’s any hope that we might hurdle these obstacles, it comes from the rising dissatisfaction of parents who have seen, as the pandemic grinds on and their children are ill-served by these twin monopolies, that they need school choice more than the schools need more Kirwan-mandated money. As this legislative session gets going, let’s hope they make their feelings known."
A Bad Bill: Yet another hit to small businesses
HB 295 -  Online Marketplace Disclosure Requirements (INFORM Consumers Act of 2022)
As efforts to defund the police take hold, retail theft has become a serious problem for the larger retailers, who are now complaining that the thieves then use Internet sales sites to "fence" the stolen merchandise.
These companies are urging the legislature to pass new regulations on what they are calling "High-Volume" third party online sellers requiring them to document and disclose privacy-invading information such as their home address and personal phone numbers.

Now, I don't know what big retailers call "high-volume," but the bill describes them as any seller who has 200 or more sales or $5,000 or more in gross revenue annually. Most of the small owners doing business online through sites like eBay, Shopify, Mailchimp stores, etc. are individuals. They are your neighbors, friends and family -- not shoplifting thieves. Many of these sites start out as hobbies -- as a way to declutter homes as well as make a bit of money. These community entrepreneurs should not become "collateral damage" in Big Retailers' effort to catch crooks fencing their stolen merchandise online.

I am hopeful that this bill will die in the drawer of the committee chair; I'll keep an eye on it.
Kittleman Legislative Scholarship
District 9-A residents
High school seniors, current undergraduate students at a 4-year college, a community college, or a private career school are eligible to apply for a Legislative Scholarship.
Please MAIL your applications to:
Del. Trent Kittleman
Lowe House Office Building,
Room 202,
Annapolis, MD 21401

For questions regarding the application process, call my Annapolis office and speak with Chelsea Leigh Murphy, my Chief of Staff, at 410-841-3556.
Authorized, Friends of Trent Kittleman, William Oliver, Treasurer