Conduit Street

Several states will have measures on the ballot this fall, that if passed, would have major fiscal consequences, some of which would affect local governments.

Washington is one of several states where voters this fall will weigh in on ballot measures that, if passed, would have enormous fiscal consequences. Voters in California, Colorado and Massachusetts will take up tax questions that could expand or shrink the foundations on which future budgets are built. Drama awaits on the spending side of budgets, too. In Arizona, voters could blow a $450 million hole in the state’s current budget if they reject two key measures this fall. And in Florida, voters will decide whether to save billions of dollars by relaxing limits on class sizes at schools.Scott Pattison, executive director the National Association of State Budget Officers, says he worries that when voters are presented with questions that so deeply impact revenue, they make decisions in a vacuum. “At least when the Legislature passes a budget, everything is relative to one another,” Pattison says. “If you spend $10 million here, you may not be able to spend $10 million there.”

Pattison, whose organization does not take positions on ballot measures, also notes that voters may not realize how revenue measures might affect a state’s competitiveness. “If your taxes are too out of whack from your neighbor’s,” he says, “then it’s a problem.”

California has a ballot initiative that would prohibit the state from using local government and transportation funding for other purposes.  In Colorado, there is a measure to prevent the state from taking on more debt and to restrict local government’s ability to borrow.

Sujit M. CanagaRetna, senior fiscal analyst at the Council of State Governments, says this year’s measures will test voters on the most basic of questions: What do they expect of their state governments and what are they, as taxpayers, willing to fund?

A compilation of the most crucial ballot measures can be found on stateline.org.

In the wake of Tuesday’s candidate filing deadline, the Daily Record reports on a number of General Assembly races expected to be contested this fall, including several “leadership” legislators who nonetheless face challenges in their districts. From the coverage:

With the battle lines finally drawn Tuesday night, some high-ranking Maryland lawmakers could face a tough road back to Annapolis in an election year that promises to bring dozens of new faces to the General Assembly.

Among the most prominent state legislators facing difficult elections are House Appropriations Committee Chairman Norman H. Conway and Joseph F. Vallario Jr., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

At least seven delegates and two senators retired following the 2010 legislative session, and 15 delegates and one senator are running for other offices. Most incumbents face challengers, many of them spurred by discontent felt by voters nationwide.

With the filing deadline for this fall’s elections upon us (this evening), county officials are welcome to use the Maryland State Board of Elections website as a tool to track filings.

Here are two direct links to check candidate lists:

2010 State Candidate List

2010 Local Candidate List

According to the State Board staff:

The new list is updated automatically every 20 minutes starting at 9:00 am until 11:00 pm. Once you click onto an office, a time stamp with date and time it was last updated shows in the upper right corner.

This new option offers very specific searches by congressional or legislative district for State filed candidates. It also allows review of county offices by clicking on a specific county. One more highlight of these new listings is the ability to export the lists to Excel.

As reported in the Gazette, the State Board of Elections adopted a policy at its meeting yesterday to regulate the use of social media such as Twitter and Facebook during political campaigns.

The rules say online communications should include “by authority of” lines, which are required now for printed material. If a tweet or an online advertisement doesn’t have room for the line, it can be included in the home page or landing page of a site. And if it can’t be included there, it must be registered with the elections board.

More coverage can be found in the Baltimore Sun and Daily Record.

At its February 24 meeting, the Board of Public Works approved a service contract to continue use of the current “on-screen” voting machines for the 2010 elections. As previously discussed here, the Governor’s budget for FY 2011 does not include funding for the anticipated purchase of new voting machines. MACo has consistently opposed the investment in new voting systems, while both State and county governments are still paying for the previously purchased system.  Prior to the approval for the service contract, the Board approved a 2010 Contingency Fund item of $175,000 so the contract could be implemented in the current fiscal year.

The new service contract was not without controversy, as the Board had discussions about the confusing nature of the contract. The final vote on the contract approval was 2-1, with Comptroller Peter Franchot voting against its approval. The eventual amount of spending on service items is not fully clear from the contract proposal, as the item approved includes some components relevant only to the purchase of new voting systems, which will not be activated for the coming year without their purchase. The anticipated value of the new contract is some $21 million over the three-year base contract, with renewal options for four years totaling approximately $22 million. Half these costs are expected to be billed to county governments according to their voting-age population.