Speaking before municipal officials during the annual Maryland Municipal League (MML) Conference, gubernatorial candidates Lt. Governor Anthony Brown, Harford County Executive David Craig, Delegate Ron George, Larry Hogan, and Charles Lollar pledged to restore local highway user revenues. Local governments, counties and municipalities, used to receive 30% of revenues, now they receive 9.6%. MACo and MML have been jointly advocating for the restoration of these funds.

As reported by the Baltimore Sun:

Brown, the front-runner in the race for the Democratic nomination, did not apologize for the administration’s actions, saying “no program in state government has been spared the ax.”

However, Brown said last year’s legislation increasing Maryland’s gas tax has given the state the resources to return to the pre-recession levels of the fiscal 2008 budget. He promised to go back to the funding formula used at that time rather than the one-time grant approach used in the coming year’s budget.

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While all four candidates in the Republican field called for cutting state spending, each put local highway aid in a different category – matching Brown’s pledge of a restoration to pre-recession levels.