Phil Andrews
How would you characterize the quality of civic engagement in Montgomery County, and what do you think should be done to improve it?
As the question implies, there is a need for improvement, although civic engagement in Montgomery County takes many forms and in many respects is healthy and impressive. For example, many County residents volunteer for and contribute to charitable organizations. An extremely encouraging trend is the substantial increase in the number of residents volunteering for local fire and rescue departments, bucking the national trend. Montgomery County’s Community Service Day also is an inspiring example of successful civic engagement.
However, with regard to engagement directly with County government, too often very few people participate, and often the people who do participate are the same people and represent only one or two points of view. Increasing participation and diversity of viewpoint at public hearings, on boards and commissions, and more generally in civic life is important. For example, if one attended the County Council’s budget hearings for the past four years, one would get the impression that residents want the County Council to continue to increase spending on social services, and, if necessary, to raise taxes to do so. However, the County’s own independent surveys of the past three to four years show public opinion is otherwise.
Although it is much easier to organize interest groups and individuals who derive direct benefits from government than to organize individuals with more general interests, more could be done to level the playing field. For example, better fiscal impact analysis would help the public understand the direct and indirect costs of proposals. A recent example was the County Executive’s agreement with county unions to provide 117 additional paid years of leave in FY 11 while, incredibly, claiming no fiscal impact. The fiscal impact will accrue as employees use the additional leave in place of annual leave, and bank their annual leave, which the County will have to pay out when the employee leaves. The County Council’s Office of Legislative Oversight (OLO) estimated the value of the lost services at nearly $7 million. I am co-sponsoring legislation introduced by Councilmember Knapp that contains requirements for comprehensive fiscal impact analysis recommended by the Council’s OLO that should provide the Council and the public with better information on which to base decisions.
Improving communication through better use of technology is another way to attempt to increase and broaden civic engagement with County government. In addition, the Council should continue to hold town hall meetings around the County to reach out to different communities, and to continue to improve publicity about the meetings.
What role do you think the Council and County Executive should play in setting education policy and providing oversight of the Montgomery County Public Schools?
Neither the Council nor County Executive set education policy, which is done by the State and by MCPS. The Council has influenced school policies, such as improving protocols for reporting serious incidents to the police that occur on school property, by assigning the Council’s Office of Legislative Oversight (OLO) to research issues and make findings and recommendations, and then following up with work sessions in the Education Committee (which I sit on) and in the Public Safety Committee (which I have chaired since 2000).
Oversight is a crucial role for the County Council vis-à-vis MCPS. Taxypayers have a keen interest in seeing that the 57% of the operating budget that goes to MCPS is spent well and gets good results. The Council has stepped up evaluation and oversight efforts in recent years by dedicating more staff to analyzing the MCPS budget and policies. I do not think that the Board of Education (BOE) has done adequate oversight of MCPS. The BOE would be in a better position to do oversight if it moved the evaluation arm of MCPS from the Superintendent to the BOE. The Council’s OLO provides a good model for the school system.
What steps should the county take to maintain or improve public safety at a time when budget pressures are forcing cuts to spending on police and social services?
The Council has worked closely with the County Executive and with leaders of our public safety departments to find savings in budget line items and programs that have little or no impact on front-line services and emergency response. Most of the savings came from eliminating pay increases, furloughing employees, and reducing the size of recruit classes. In addition, some services have been scaled back or eliminated. The number of Community Resource Officers and the number of School Resource Officers (police officers based in the schools) has been reduced. In the Department of Correction and Rehabilitation, major consolidation of units and responsibilities enabled the elimination of two of five divisions.
The approach described above will likely need to continue for at least another year or two as the economy recovers. In the meantime, but also generally, the County should continue to do all that it can to build on the remarkable volunteer service component of our Fire and Rescue Service, which saves taxpayers north of $20 million annually. Likewise, the County should continue to make as much use as possible of volunteers in the Police Department, which has had a very successful volunteer services section, which include interns, for two decades.
What, if any, changes to the structure of the county's tax system should we be considering?
I support state legislation that would enable the County to set different property tax rates for the residential and commercial sectors. This would enable the County to recognize substantial differences in how market forces affect the property values of different sectors rather than continuing the present inflexible and inadequate one-size-fits-all approach.
What should we expect Montgomery County's transportation network to look like in 30 years, and how will that affect where and how we live and work?
30 years from now, and hopefully much sooner, the Purple Line, Corridor Cities Transitway, a 100-plus mile system of Bus Rapid Transit (like the one proposed by Councilmember Marc Elrich), the widening of I-270 with two reversible lanes from Shady Grove Road to Frederick County, a dedicated funding source for Metro, and expansion of the MARC system will all be in place. The transit improvements will encourage a larger percentage of new residents and of the overall County population to live closer to transit hubs, and will provide, along with Metro, Ride-On and MARC, a very good countywide system of transit for commuters.
How will Montgomery County be different four years from now if you are elected?
The County will have a structurally balanced budget because County officials will have made the difficult decisions necessary to get personnel costs under control.
For years, I have highlighted the problem of unsustainable personnel costs, as detailed below, which comprise 80% of County-funded operating budgets, including MCPS. I have been outspoken about the unsustainability of numerous labor agreements negotiated by County Executives and by MCPS, and have voted against them or worked to reduce them, often alone.
For example, in 2003, I was one of five councilmembers that insisted that a scheduled cost-of-living increase be delayed for both County and MCPS employees, saving approximately $19 million, to help balance the budget in an equitable manner.
In 2005, I spoke out against and was the only councilmember who opposed the proposed agreement with the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF) that provided for 20-year retirement (down from 25 years), and pay increases over a three-year period with a cumulative fiscal impact of more than $40 million. That one contract added more than $20 million to the County’s base personnel costs in FY 08, contributing to the fiscal difficulties that the County has and continues to face.
In 2006, I was the only councilmember who proposed reducing a 43% increase in the County supplement to school employees’ pensions. In 2007, I criticized MCPS for approving a three-year contract with unsustainable pay increases averaging 8% for most teachers (those who received step increases). These pay increases became the goal for other unions, exacerbating the County’s fiscal challenges.
In 2008, I was the only councilmember who voted against a three-year contract with firefighters that provided cumulative pay increases of more than 25%, including a 10.5% scheduled pay increase for most employees (those receiving step increases) in FY 11. That increase quickly became unaffordable when the recession hit, as well as being unsustainable over time and unnecessary to recruit and retain excellent fire and rescue personnel. I also was the only councilmember who voted against “re-opener” agreements with the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) and the Montgomery County General Employees Organization (MCGEO) that substantially increased retirement benefits for thousands of employees. Also in 2008, recognizing the unsustainability of personnel costs trends, Councilmember Duchy Trachtenberg and I proposed saving $40 million in personnel costs in the FY 09 budget, the equivalent of reducing scheduled general wage increases from 5% to 3%. Had the Council supported that initiative, this year’s budget would have had a significantly better outcome for taxpayers and recipients of County services.
As president of the Council in 2009, a difficult budget year, I led efforts that resulted in adoption of a balanced budget that protected essential services, and had no tax increases and almost no layoffs. This was achieved by eliminating scheduled general wage increases and reducing non-essential spending. I also led efforts to ensure that the Council rejected a poorly designed, untargeted early retirement buyout program that the Council’s Office of Legislative Oversight estimated would cost taxpayers $16-$20 million over the next 10 years. Also in 2009, I cast the only vote against a bill implementing a County Executive agreement with county unions to calculate pension agreements as if a cancelled pay increase had actually been funded (these became known as “phantom COLAs”). This year, I sponsored the bill to repeal the use of “phantom COLAs” that garnered unanimous Council support.
In addition, in 2009, I led efforts as chair of the Public Safety Committee that resulted in Council rejection of a proposed unaffordable helicopter unit for the Police Department, and that resulted in Council rejection of an agreement that the Executive struck with the FOP that would have allowed officers who lived within 15 miles of the County to have take-home patrol cars – and would have allowed officers within the County to drive their take-home cars anywhere within a 15 mile border of the County. This would not only have been expensive, it would have weakened public safety in the County; the requirement that officers must live in the County to have a take-home car is why 70% of County police officers live in the communities they serve. In addition, working closely with Councilmember Trachtenberg, I led efforts to reform the County’s dysfunctional disability retirement system, achieving important procedural reforms. We are continuing to lead the battle to establish a two-tiered disability retirement system that recognizes the difference between partially and fully disabling injuries. Such a system would save taxpayers many millions of dollars over time.
Phil Andrews
District 3
Democrat