Anyone who looks at Dawson’s record in Perryville opposing increases in spending, fighting to abolish/strip regulation, and protecting property rights has to see that he would be the most conservative County Executive out of the field.

The Smigiel/Pipkin fixation gets old after a while. Sure they are not perfect, everyone knows that — but I don’t think anyone can make a good argument to say that they have been fiscal moderates or advocates for big government in Annapolis. Smigiel and Pipkin have been the top state leaders fighting against the liberal agenda in Annapolis. If you would like to target a member of our delegation for making bad decisions and expanding the size of government maybe you should look at Delegate Dave Rudolph’s voting record.

Hopefully in the future we can elect conservatives that are even better than they have been so that we can continue to fight big government expansion in Annapolis.

2010- Pipkin/Smigiel hold a town hall at Singerly Fire Hall to promote two pieces of legislation. First was a collective bargaining bill for the local sheriff’s office that included binding arbitration. Yes, Pipkin and Smigiel were pushing for unionization for public employees, and not only that, but they felt that the much more costly binding arbitration form of unionization was the way to go. Ted Patterson, Chris Zeauskas, and Jim Mullin were also strong advocates for this legislation. Why did the sheriff’s deputies feel this was necessary? Most were unhappy with their pension plan. They felt they should be able to retire earlier with a better pension package, similar to what Pipkin and Smigiel gave to teachers in 2006. So essentially, Pipkin, Smigiel, Ted Patterson, Chris Zeauskas, and Jim Mullin wanted to create a similar pension situation for sheriff’s deputies as was created in the state for teachers in 2006.

The second bill being pushed by Pipkin/Smigiel was similar to the bill currently being pushed by O’Malley which passes on a portion of teacher’s costs to the county. So first they sponsored bills to increase benefits; then they pass the costs onto the local government in the form of another unfunded mandate. Neither Pipkin’s bill nor O’Malley’s bill to pass teacher pension costs to the county grant any more authority to the local government to control the type of pension offered to teachers and its associated costs.

Teacher pay is not the issue; pension benefits are. Cecil County does not pay its teachers and exorbitant amount of money, but rather a middle class income. There are many professional fields which pay their employees the same or a greater amount of money as teachers, but they don’t offer the same type of defined benefit package, so they don’t encounter the same issue that the state of Maryland is having. Many fields offer 401k plans or other fiscally sustainable plans. Before any cost of pensions is given to the county, the tax money that we have been sending to Annapolis to fund the pensions should be returned to the local government and we should be given full autonomy over our pension benefit package, so that we can create one that is sustainable for the citizens.

Remember Ted Patterson, Chris Zeauskas, and Jim Mullin all favored empowering public unions through binding arbitration and giving “Cadillac” pension benefits to the sheriff’s deputies, which would come at great expense to the local citizens. Current candidate for executive, Mike Dawson, also favored this. I hardly think that they are credible sources of information on this issue.

The end cost was $40,000,000.00. Not only did we not get it done at the over whelming cost $20 million, but we went over by $20 million. I can not speak for Dr. Devine but I would say that is a boat load of Teachers pensions. The other thing that is always left out is that they have a rainy day fund of $9 million.

The problem is not if we pay for things at the state or local level.
The problem is over spending at both levels. What we need to remember as citizens is that we pay for these pensions on both levels.

The state has nothing to do with negotiated salary/benefit package agreements. However, excessive salaries and benefit packages have a direct impact on pension costs. Lower salaries and benefits and the cost of pensions follow.

Local boards were in control of out of control spending and so the state is cutting up their credit cards. The state didn’t seem to mind footing pension costs when costs were reasonable, but the rapid and excessive increase in education spending by local boards over the last ten years is bankrupting the state and even Owe Malley gets it.

If Ms. Devine wants to fix the problem she needs to take a serious look in the mirror and realize that continued support of big educational budgets is the problem. Control spending and fix the problem.

We can’t keep spending what we don’t have.