A political power shift in the Baltimore region was made official Monday as Democratic county executives were sworn into office in the three suburban counties surrounding the city.
Steuart Pittman and Calvin Ball took the helm from Republican executives in Anne Arundel and Howard counties, while Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr. continued a 25-year streak of Democratic leadership in the largest of the three suburban counties.
All three were sworn in Monday, as was Barry Glassman, the Republican county executive in Harford County, who handily won a second term in last month’s general election.
The executives are facing different challenges as their terms open. In Baltimore County, Olszewski’s immediate concern is the jurisdiction’s fiscal outlook. A new advisory report by Public Resources Advisory Group, a New York firm that evaluates county borrowing patterns, warns the county cannot sustain its current rate of borrowing money for infrastructure projects.
Without significant change — such as scaling back borrowing, raising taxes or forgoing pay raises for government employees — the county’s outstanding debt could balloon from about $2 billion now to nearly $3 billion by 2024, the report says.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Pamela Wood over at the Baltimore Sun