April 12, 2025

Ready Report: End of Session Wrap Up & Urgent Request to help CCPS

The 2025 Legislative Session adjourned Sine Die at midnight on Monday, April 7th. No further legislation will be passed until the next Legislative Session, which is slated to begin in January 2026. Below is a brief update, which includes a link to a much longer, comprehensive breakdown of legislation from session.

2025 End of Session Wrap Up

Earlier this week, I, along with Delegate April Rose and Delegate Chris Tomlinson, wrote a comprehensive letter to constituents detailing what happened during the 2025 Legislative Session. This letter includes details about the Operating Budget, the Tax Increase package in the “BRFA” and the separate Capital Budget, some of the top legislative priorities that we were working on, as well as legislation from other members of the General Assembly relating to Energy & MPRP, crime, and the 2nd Amendment. You can read the full letter by clicking here or on the picture below:

Action Needed – Help Carroll County Public Schools achieve Blueprint Waiver

District 42C Delegate Josh Stonko and I, along with support from our entire Carroll County Delegation worked all legislative Session for flexibility in Blueprint implementation for Carroll County based on our unique circumstances. Because we were united and also had a tremendous outpouring from parents, teachers and county leaders, we were able to gain support from the Democratic leadership in the House of Delegates and State Senate for the state Accountability & Implementation Board (AIB) to adopt a new waiver process for situations like ours. This took a lot of negotiating, and we worked closely with CCPS/Board of Education and the employee unions in the discussions.

But now – on April 17th – the AIB will be meeting to vote on Carroll County’s actual waiver application. It is essential that they hear from as many people in the community as possible in order for them to approve this multi-year waiver. It would be a huge deal for the schools and students but also would protect taxpayers from possibility of large local tax hikes forced by Blueprint mandates.

You can watch a short video where Delegate Stonko explains this further by clicking here.

See below for instructions on how you can make your voice heard. If you’re a Carroll resident, whether you have children in the system, teach/work for CCPS or if you’re a taxpayer – your voice is vitally important using the general points below as this waiver would allow us to continue pursuing and achieving a high level of educational quality without massive disruptions to specific regions of our county, major staffing cuts and potentially large tax increases.

Here are details from Carroll County Public Schools about how to contact AIB and suggestions for comments:

On March 25, given overwhelming community feedback, Dr. Cynthia McCabe, Superintendent of Schools, announced that they were pausing the school and classroom level staffing changes planned to comply with Blueprint for Maryland’s Future requirements. This pause in making the changes to staffing and class sizes was made pending the outcome of a waiver process before the Accountability and Implementation Board (AIB).

Carroll County Public Schools submitted for a waiver on April 1, 2025, to the AIB, (accompanied by a supportive letter from the Carroll County Delegation).

It is important that we send a message to the AIB that our community strongly supports this waiver. We would encourage you to review the waiver request which is available to see by clicking here. If you support the waiver request, we urge you to email the AIB at [email protected] to inform them of your support.

Your message may be very brief, simply indicating that you request that the AIB approve the CCPS waiver request. The AIB is expected to make a decision on April 17; therefore, all emails must be received no later than Wednesday, April 16.

Thank you for your support in this very important matter.

Please share this and take a few minutes email [email protected] that you support the waiver.

Conclusion:

Thank you as always for the opportunity to serve you in the Senate. I will continue to update you in more detail on what happened during the 2025 Session as well as ongoing issues. Please feel free to contact me anytime with questions or concerns.

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