MACo Legislative Director Kevin Kinnally this week testified before the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee in support of SB 400 – Transportation – Highway User Revenue – Distribution with amendments. The bill, as introduced, provides short-term stability for the state-levied transportation revenues needed to support safety and maintenance work on local roads and bridges across Maryland.

MACo urges amendments to not only avoid the sunset of current funding levels, but the proper restoration of the state/local balance that served Maryland for decades before recession-driven cutbacks. Restoration of local infrastructure funding sits atop MACo’s legislative initiatives for the 2022 session – it is local governments’ top priority.

From the MACo Testimony:

SB 400, as introduced, avoids a short-term crisis with Highway User Revenues – eliminating the coming “cliff effect” following a multi-year tier in annual local funding. This is an important step. However, given the opportunity created by federal infrastructure investments, and the compelling needs demonstrated by local governments on a decade-plus “starvation diet” of road and bridge funding, counties support a full restoration of the 30% share to local governments, not a mere extension of the last incremental step toward that fully warranted policy goal.

HB 1187 / SB 726 — Transportation – Highway User Revenues – Revenue and Distribution is a MACo/Maryland Municipal League (MML) Legislative Initiative bill to fully restore critical funding for local roads.

Previous Conduit Street Coverage: Taking the Longer Look at Transportation Funding.

More on MACo’s Advocacy:

Follow MACo’s advocacy efforts during the 2022 legislative session on MACo’s Legislative Tracking Database.
Learn more about MACo’s 2022 Legislative Initiatives.
Read more General Assembly News on MACo’s Conduit Street blog.