The segments below provide a brief overview of MACo’s work on school and capital facilities policy in the 2025 General Assembly session.
County Governments partner with the State of Maryland to fund school construction projects throughout Maryland. K-12 school renovation and construction projects make up a substantial portion of any county’s capital budget, and the needs of Maryland students are consistently a high priority.
Maryland’s 447th 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.
MACo opposed HB 811/SB 526 – Counties – Construction of Sidewalks and Crosswalks – Safe Alternative Routes to Public Schools. This bill would have placed a costly mandate on county governments to carry out new state policies to create sidewalks and crosswalks as alternative routes for all public-school students. MACo does not raise policy objections to the bill’s goal of ensuring safe routes for students – county concerns are merely practical and cost-driven.
Bill Information | MACo Coverage
MACo supported with amendments HB 49 – Environment – Building Energy Performance Standards – Alterations and the cross-file, SB 256 – Environment – Building Energy Performance Standards – Compliance and Reporting with amendments. This bill initially required counties to comply with energy use intensity targets, that are yet to be set, or pay an alternative compliance fee as well as an administrative fee. Counties requested clarity as to what the state’s building energy performance standards will be so that local jurisdictions can accurately assess the cost of compliance. The bill ultimately passed with just the administrative fee in place for benchmarking, and further requirements pending. Additionally, the bill includes a commitment from the Maryland Department of the Environment to consider the practicality of including some county buildings, particularly those with the purpose of providing public safety and public health services.
Bill Information | MACo Coverage
MACo supported SB 807 – Environment – Local Building Energy Performance Standards – Authorization. This bill would have allowed counties to adopt and enforce local building energy performance standards that are at least as stringent as those adopted by the Maryland Department of the Environment. This bill did not pass but similar provisions for local authorization were included in HB 49 where this authorization was clarified for existing local programs.
Bill Information | MACo Coverage
MACo supported HB 61 – School Buildings – Solar Technologies – Parking Lot Solar Canopies with amendments. This bill would have mandated that all new or renovated parking lots at a public school be required to be designed, engineered, and constructed with the underground infrastructure for an eventual solar canopy, regardless of site suitability. Counties requested amendments to set clear exceptions to the mandate if a local jurisdiction, during the process of renovating or constructing a new parking lot, finds that the site is not viable for an eventual solar canopy. The bill did not pass, but was ultimately amended to do just that, by adjusting current law to require an exploration, at the time of design, of solar canopy technologies, in addition to the existing requirements. If the technology is not found to be viable for the specific location, then there is no requirement to build any of the infrastructure.
Bill Information | MACo Coverage
