Special Session: Solution part of the problem for MoCo

Maryland’s richest county will be hit hard by higher income taxes, but what does it get in return?

In the lead-up to the special session, lawmakers said that if they could put up a unified front, the delegation would be able to flex its political muscle, trade votes for concessions on county priorities and send a signal that Montgomery is a force to be reckoned with in Annapolis.

But now the General Assembly is preparing to go to conference on income tax restructuring bills that will slam the county with the state’s largest number of high-income earners.

So much for being the largest delegation in the state.

The $86 million that Montgomery would lose under a budget featuring all cuts that legislative leaders presented this summer pales in comparison to the ‘‘couple hundred million” in cuts that the county could face under the plans now being considered in the special session, Knapp said.

‘‘We lost more in the long run on the solution than we would on the doomsday scenario,” he said.

For every dollar Montgomery paid in taxes in fiscal 2004, the latest year for which state budget analysis is available, it got back 15 cents in direct state grants, money that goes mostly to the public schools. The statewide average was 35 cents.

The delegation hoped to improve on those numbers or bring other concessions home — in the form of money for education or transportation. Some delegation members say they have achieved that. Others say the county has no guarantees.

Last week, House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Dist. 30) of Annapolis urged lawmakers to ‘‘concentrate on the problem that’s in front of them, not on their own parochial interests.”

That combined with Gov. Martin O’Malley’s call for consensus, and the delegation ‘‘collapsed,” Del. Benjamin F. Kramer said.

‘‘Certain people were brought in to meet with the speaker and afterwards didn’t feel quite as strongly about coalescing to support Montgomery County’s needs,” said Kramer (D-Dist. 19) of Derwood.

It was hard for Montgomery to find an issue to ‘‘coalesce” around, said House Delegation Chairman Brian J. Feldman (D-Dist. 15) of Potomac.

Montgomery County has about 1 million people, but one in four students are on free and reduced meals and half of the state’s limited-English population lives in the county.

‘‘That’s the Montgomery no one knows,” Feldman said. ‘‘That is not the Montgomery people in Annapolis think of. And that’s reflected in the politics of the delegation.”

With such a diverse population, big issues mean different things to different people, he said. Take transportation: Some want the Purple Line rail between Bethesda and New Carrollton; others want the Corridor Cities Transitway busway between Clarksburg and the Shady Grove Metro in Rockville.

‘‘They’re working hard to educate folks about the Montgomery County implications,” said County Council President Marilyn J. Praisner (D-Dist. 4) of Calverton. ‘‘But it’s hard during a very compressed time period to both make the case and work through the issues. So they’ve got a challenge.”

County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) met with the delegation throughout the summer urging unity as the O’Malley administration unveiled its series of taxes, slots and cuts proposals.

That unity fell apart in the first week of the special session when Leggett testified before the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee for an income tax structure that delegation members said he had not vetted with them and that they did not support.

In the end, Leggett’s proposal, which called for a top rate of 5.5 percent — a full percentage point lower than O’Malley’s top bracket, ‘‘was not any more influential than any other plans out there,” Feldman said.

About 16 members of the delegation proposed an amendment to the House Ways and Means Committee that the tax plan add a 5.75 percent tax bracket for incomes higher than $500,000 a year and a 6 percent bracket for those larger than $1 million.

The amendment was rejected.

‘‘I think the question is, what’s going to come in the regular session?” Praisner said. ‘‘I assume our delegation generated some commitments from the governor.”

O’Malley met behind closed doors with Montgomery delegates on Saturday in an effort to win support for the House tax plan, describing the projects that would benefit. He highlighted $50 million for Metro and $10 million for the county’s Ride On buses included in his plan and expressed a commitment to spending $58 million to improve the intersection of Georgia Avenue and Randolph Road, to build a new courthouse in Rockville and to finish Montgomery College’s Rockville Science Center.

O’Malley also pledged to speed up the phase-in of an education aid program that will benefit the county by pumping extra money into jurisdictions where cost of living is highest.

‘‘Education and transportation in return for a difficult vote — I think that’s a victory,” said Del. Jeff Waldstreicher (D-Dist. 18) of Kensington.

All of the projects O’Malley touted are already in the pipeline but could be sidelined by a poor economy or the uncertainties of the legislative process.

‘‘We heard things that might be coming to Montgomery County. The reality is we did not have things put into writing,” Kramer said. ‘‘It’s one thing to just have a wish list to be considered. It’s another thing to have it funded and put in the budget and kept in the budget.”

Del. Luiz R.S. Simmons, a critic of the governor’s slots plan and income tax proposal, agreed.

‘‘The delegation has decisively answered the question of whether there’s any there there,” said Simmons (D-Dist. 17) of Rockville. ‘‘The people who are claiming progress are finding virtue out of necessity.”