The brief, but official, set of recommendations from the Joint Legislative Work Group on State, County and Municipal Fiscal Relationships has been posted on the Maryland General Assembly website. As previously posted here following the group’s final work session, they recommend a number of fiscal and operational changes, and will be seeking leadership from MACo and MML to help implement them across local governments.

The Workgroup’s recommendations regarding Maintenance of Effort suggest different structure and timing for the waiver process before the State Board of Education, but do not include some of the elements sought by MACo, including a “legislative” waiver to be automatically triggered by objective economic indicators, rather than solely authorizing waiver approval through a subjective vote of the Board. The workgroup will introduce legislation on MOE for the 2010 session — the other fiscal and operational suggestions do not require formal legislative adoption.