The Maryland Association of Counties (MACo) held their 2021 Winter Conference Wednesday December 8th through Friday December 10th in Cambridge. It was a wealth of information and networking and I was honored to be able to represent St. Mary’s County there. The frustrating part of the conference is that I have to pick and choose the sessions to attend and I inevitably miss other interesting talks and lectures, but I make every effort to maximize the value for St. Mary’s County. There is so much that I would love to share about the conference, but I will limit it here to some of the highlights.
Wednesday
On Wednesday I attended the Opening Roundtable on “Exploring Opportunities for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Local Governance”—one of the presenters made some interesting observations, including “you can’t train your way to equity.” After that I attended a presentation on “Transforming Your Budget Process” that was led by a former Montgomery County Budget Manager and focused on how process improvements, organizational change and modern technology can help facilitate agile public administration and improvements for both our residents and our employees. That afternoon I attended a session entitled “Not Your Grandfather’s Farm: Tapping into Agritourism” that had a great panel of speakers and delved into issues like ‘farming with money’ vs ‘farming for money’ and types of value added agriculture. My last session of the day was “Health Behind Bars” and one of the presenters was our Deputy Warden Mary Ann Thompson. Most people don’t realize that the law requires full healthcare for all incarcerated people and that cost is not paid by Medicare/Medicaid/Private Insurance, it falls back to local tax dollars to cover it. The complexities around are detention facilities are huge, but we have incredibly people working them.
After that I attended one of my favorite MACo Conference events, the MACo Book Club! I have participated in the book club at every MACo conference since I was elected and I even led the discussion at a previous conference. This time the book was “Mine!: How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives” by Michael Heller and James Salzman. We had a great discussion that flew by.
Thursday
Thursday morning started off with a meeting of all of the County Elected Officials to discuss several MACo initiatives, hear committee reports and approve officers—its always amazing to see that despite our geographic and population differences, we have many of the same challenges as counties. After that I attended the General Session “Building Out Broadband, Building Up Maryland” for presentations on challenges and opportunities in regards to broadband in Maryland. Next I attended the General Session “Extra, Extra #ReadAllAboutit: Reaching Residents with Social Media.” All of the speakers in this session were very interesting, especially Michael Ricci, the Director of Communications for the Office of the Governor, and Dr. Mileah Kromer, a professor from Goucher College who heads the Goucher College Poll. Following that session I attended the Rural County Coalition meeting where we discussed initiatives with the other similar counties—this networking and cohesion pays dividends during the legislative session for our ability to try to help shape policy coming out of Annapolis. The final session I attended on Thursday was “Righting a Wrong: Leveraging Opioid Settlement Funds to Heal Maryland.” Attorney General Brian Frosh was one of the panelists and its no secret that I and many other counties are not happy about his plan to distribute funds from the Johnson and Johnson settlement—he is advocating for the majority of the funds to remain in state control, and to be doled out through a grant process through the state bureaucracy. We are advocating that the funds go directly to the counties and municipalities without the state having the ability to control or misalign the funds.
Friday
Friday, the last day of the conference, was a shorter day. I attended the initial session on Employment Issues and the 2022 General Assembly Forecast. Hard to tell what the focus of the General Assembly will be this coming year since it is an election year, but the MACo policy experts were able to give some insights. MACo always votes on several key issues to advocate for on behalf of the counties, and this year they include EMS Billing Rates, which will have a huge impact on our county and the state. EMS Billing is a “soft billing,” meaning that if you call 9-1-1 and get ambulance, a bill will be sent to you for your insurance or Medicare to pay, but the county is not going to chase you down for unpaid bills. The insurance companies follow whatever the Medicare approved amounts are, and right now that amount is capped at $100 for an ambulance ride to the Emergency Room. The push will be to increase, over time, that amount to $300, and to increase the items eligible for billing—you may not need to go to the emergency room, you may only need a trip to Urgent Care or a Rehab Center, and those services should be included. The final session of the conference was “Cannabis Policy Reform: Getting into the Weeds.” This was the closing session two years ago too, and the speakers are always interesting as they highlight where we are going as a state and country and what the ramifications may be.
Conclusion
Overall, the conference was phenomenal. One of my favorite aspects of the job of county commissioner is that I am constantly learning new things, and this conference really packs a lot of learning into a short window. The connections with other elected officials and government employees from around the state is also invaluable. Thank you for the continue opportunity to serve and I would encourage you to sign up for my FREE email list here so you can stay up to date with information that I’d like to share.
Below are some pictures I grabed with Mary Ann Thompson during her presentation, our Emergency Services Chris Thompson demonstrating our statewide 9-1-1 system, and my friend Rafiu Ighile, the Director of Finance for Howard County. Rafiu and I met over the summer when we both participated in the National Association of Counties Leadership Program.
