Senator Cheryl Kagan (District 17) introduced a bill that standardizes references to nonprofits in the state code. She will also soon introduce a bill authorizing a small fund for bridge loans for nonprofits with county and state contracts. When this is introduced, we will share more information.
President Trump is expected to issue an executive order today that will work to eliminate “sanctuary cities,” where municipal governments refuse to hand over undocumented immigrants to federal authorities. The order will triple resources for Immigration and Custom Enforcement and direct the federal government to identify criminal aliens in the US.
Montgomery County, Prince George’s County, Baltimore City, Washington DC are all sanctuary counties/cities. As this policy develops, Nonprofit Montgomery will continue to share the impact on county resources and nonprofits who serve these populations.
From time to time we alert our members to advocacy efforts that may affect their nonprofit and the people they serve. To see our most current advocacy update, click here. Please consider joining Nonprofit Montgomery as a member to receive advocacy alerts and updates as soon as they are released.
From time to time we alert you to advocacy efforts that may affect your nonprofit and the people you serve. As an alliance of nonprofits that represents a broad sector of interests and needs, we will not take a stand on legislation and advocacy efforts without support of our board and members. However, we encourage all of our members to decide for themselves if this is something they would support.
Nonprofit leaders and staff, board members, and volunteers are strongly encouraged to attend these public forums on the county’s operating budget to share insight into community needs, and to hear the County Executive’s priorities about the Fiscal Year 2018 (FY18) Operating Budget.
January 9, 7pm, Bethesda-Chevy Chase Regional Services Center
January 11, 7pm, Eastern Montgomery Regional Services Center
January 18,7pm, Mid-County Community Recreation Center
January 25, 7pm, Silver Spring Civic Building
January 30, 7pm, BlackRock Center for the Arts
The County Executive will announce his Recommended FY18 Operating Budget on March 15 and will approve it by the end of May.
To help Nonprofit Montgomery gather input from nonprofits, please join us on Wednesday, January 10 from 2-4pm for a Nonprofit Convening about the Savings Plan.
This packet from the Council’s December 12 session includes County Executive’s Leggett’s memo on page 32 of the supporting materials. This also contains valuable information about budget pressures that will not only impact FY18 and a savings plan, but future budget years as well.
Link:
Montgomery County Must Revise Current Budget Due to Unexpected Revenue Shortfall (Bethesda Magazine, December 4, 2017)
Minimum Wage Council Session Updates
Your Input Needed Now
On Wednesday, December 7, the Council HHS Committee held a worksession on Bill 12-16, which proposes to increase the minimum wage in the county to $15 by 2020. Councilmembers in attendance included the members of the Health & Human Services Committee: George Leventhal, Roger Berliner, and Craig Rice, as well as Nancy Navarro, Sidney Katz, Tom Hucker, Nancy Floreen, and Marc Elrich.
The active discussion included discussion of the potential impact on nonprofits. See pages 17 and 26-27in the packet. You can watch the hearing on the Council website. Bethesda Beat summarized the meeting here.
While Nonprofit Montgomery shared our survey results with the Council, those results reflected the views of only 22 of our 130 members. In order to ensure that nonprofits can continue to be funded appropriately to maintain current service levels, Councilmembers need to be aware of the potential cost impacts.
We will continue to gather data from you and share it with them as they continue deliberation prior to a vote in early 2017. Because there is limited time to share this information, please respond to the surveyby December 15 if you haven’t already, and also contact Councilmembers directly.
With five co-sponsors, the bill already has majority support on the Council. From the initial survey, the majority of the 22 Nonprofit Montgomery members who responded support the legislation, or support it if mitigation for nonprofits is included. As deliberation on Bill 12-16 proceeds, Nonprofit Montgomery will continue to encourage the Council to pay attention to the impact of the legislation on nonprofit organizations’ bottom lines, and to consider avenues for mitigation.
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