The segments below provide a brief overview of MACo’s work on Employee Benefits and Relations policy in the 2024 General Assembly session.
MACo advocates for fair state laws governing employment practices, labor representation, and employer-employee relationships. MACo becomes particularly engaged when a proposal has a disproportionate or unique effect on public sector employees – frequently those affecting public safety employees or other public workers who engage in sensitive and essential functions.
Maryland’s 446th legislative session convened amidst a substantial concern over the State’s fiscal situation, with weakened revenues and cost increases for many services at every level of government. Despite the fiscal limitations, a wide range of policy issues received a full debate, with many resolutions arising from the 90-day annual process. MACo’s legislative committee guided the association’s positions on hundreds of bills, yielding many productive compromises and gains spanning counties’ uniquely wide portfolio.
Follow these links for more coverage on our Conduit Street blog and Legislative Database.
Unemployment
MACo opposed HB 205/SB 104- Unemployment Insurance Modernization Act of 2024 as it would have significantly altered the way Maryland calculates unemployment insurance (UI) benefits and contributions, more than doubling the minimum and maximum weekly benefits range used to determine weekly benefit amounts. These changes would have created a substantial fiscal challenge for counties, who are not part of the State trust fund but would be required to pay the greatly enhanced benefit levels. This bill did not pass during the 2024 session.
Bill Information | MACo Coverage
Hiring and Retention
MACo opposed HB 900/SB 1117- Employment Standards – Firefighters – Payment of Overtime and Payroll Information as this bill would have removed a topic that is currently subject to local bargaining, and instead would have established a statewide mandate for a uniform schedule and overtime policy for all professional firefighters statewide. This bill did not pass during the 2024 session.
Bill Information | MACo Coverage
Paid Family and Medical Leave
MACo supported HB 571/SB 485- Family and Medical Leave Insurance Program – Modifications with amendments to modify and alter certain aspects of the Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI) Program, passed in 2022. Counties, as major employers in Maryland, support the efforts of the bill to adjust the timeline of the FAMLI Program to ensure the State and employers are in the best position to implement and manage the benefit.
MACo supported the intent of this bill, but were concerned with the language in the bill that authorized the Maryland Department of Labor to collect fees on employers who do not participate in the State Plan and instead offer the FAMLI benefit via an Equivalent Private Insurance Plan (EPIP). The final version of the bill clarified that the fee was solely to offset administrative and processing costs, not a broader cost subsidy. This amended bill passed during the 2024 session.
Bill Information | MACo Coverage
Pharmacy Benefits
MACo opposed HB 726/SB 626- Pharmacy Benefits Managers – Definition of Purchaser and Alteration of Application of Law as it would have limited the tools Pharmacy Benefits Managers (PBMs) can use to negotiate pharmaceutical prices on behalf of their clients, including county governments. This would have greatly disrupted counties’ ability to provide county staff with the best and most fiscally responsible benefits for their public services. This bill did not pass during the 2024 session.
Bill Information | MACo Coverage
Workers’ Compensation
MACo opposed HB 190/SB 1069- Workers’ Compensation – Occupational Disease Presumptions – First Responders. This bill would have categorized Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as a presumed occupational disease eligible for workers’ compensation for a lengthy list of public sector workers. Under Maryland’s statutes and case law, this presumption would be effectively irrebuttable. This bill was referred to an interim study by the Economic Matters Committee and did not pass during the 2024 session.
MACo supported HB 584/SB 476- Workers’ Compensation – Occupational Disease Presumptions – First Responders (Caring for Public Employees in the Safety Professions – CAPES Act) with amendments. This bill adds colon, thyroid, and ovarian cancers to the assumed presumptions for firefighters for the purposes of workers’ compensation. While MACo supported the intent of this bill, they sought an amendment to provide State funding for the new State policy it advances: payment of newly compensable benefit claims resulting from the bill. This bill passed during the 2024 session, without the State funding MACo had sought.
Bill Information | MACo Coverage
MACo opposed HB 669/SB 843- Workers’ Compensation – Benefits – Hearing Loss. This bill expands existing eligibility for workers’ compensation related to hearing loss to include tinnitus and voids the current common-sense age-based deductions to account for natural, age-induced hearing loss. County expenditures to cover the new and expanded workers’ compensation benefits increase at a time when local governments find themselves in a precarious financial situation. This bill was narrowed to only adjust the age-related hearign loss calculation, and passed in that form during the 2024 session.
Bill Information | MACo Coverage
MACo took no position on HB 1145/SB 844- Workers’ Compensation – Occupational Disease Presumptions – Hypertension, but submitted a Letter of Information to provide local insight. This bill would greatly alter existing workers’ compensation benefits for volunteer and paid firefighters experiencing hypertension by expanding eligibility and minimizing current requirements. With the changes under HB 1145/SB 844, counties would experience an influx of volunteer and professional firefighters seeking workers’ compensation benefits for hypertension, the vast majority of which would be approved for lifelong benefits under the new eligibility requirements of the bill. This bill did not pass during the 2024 session.
Bill Information | MACo Coverage
MACo opposed SB 431- Workers’ Compensation – Occupational Disease Presumption – Long COVID (Home of the Brave Act of 2024). This bill would have designated long COVID as a new statutory presumption under workers’ compensation for a very wide swath of public sector employees, making any related care or work loss fully borne by the employer. County opposition revolved around compensability, especially with the impossibility of ascertaining whether COVID was contracted on the job or from any number of other sources or exposure situations. This bill did not pass during the 2024 session.
Bill Information | MACo Coverage
MACo opposed SB 845- Workers’ Compensation – Temporary Partial Disability – Concurrent Employment. This bill would have required employers to effectively pay temporary total disability instead of the current practice of temporary partial disability for worker’s compensation claims in which the claimant has, and continues to work in, a second job. Counties oppose the concept of paying an employee for total disability, including their ability to serve in an alternative role within their work site, while they continue to work in a secondary job. This bill did not pass during the 2024 session.
Bill Information | MACo Coverage
