This new session of conversations is with the members of the Frederick County Delegation. We extended an invitation to each of our representatives for a focused conversation on their passions and priorities with the hopes of providing valuable information and insight to the Frederick County community. The work of our Legislative Delegation during the annual 90-day Maryland General Assembly session impacts all of us, our lives, our families and our businesses. Hear firsthand from our legislators as they share their priorities and plans to deal with Maryland’s most pressing issues.
In this interview Delegate Carol Krimm discusses:
[1:38] Covid’s Effect On Being a Legislator
[6:00] Delegate Krimm’s Leadership Roles
[12:57] 2021 Session
[17:27] Teleworking
Transcription edited for readability:
Rick Weldon: Today we have with us Delegate Carol Krimm. Delegate Krimm served as a member of the Frederick Board of Alderman from 2009 to 2014. She was sworn in as one of the two delegates representing District 3-A in January of 2015 and serves on the House Appropriations Committee and has since she was first sworn in. She is the Vice-Chair of the Transportation and Environment Subcommittee and she serves as the House Chair of the Joint Audit and Evaluation Committee- and we are going to talk about that in a little because that is a lot more significant than just a title.
Delegate Krimm welcome, we are thrilled to have you here today. I am going to just jump right into the conversation! We are going through unprecedented times today, everything we know from our work, our family, our church, our culture- has been affected by Covid-19. Can you talk about your role as a state legislature and how that’s been impacted?
Delegate Krimm: Absolutely, as you know we have had tremendously high unemployment as a result of covid. And my office specifically has been inundated with people who are seeking us to assist them with obtaining their unemployment. This has been very challenging just like everything else these days- and the program that the Department of Labor created called BEACON- to help people get unemployment. We have done our best to advocate for people who have contacted our office trying to receive their benefits. On top of that, we have evictions on the horizon. Since the courts have opened up again to do those cases, we are going to have that problem as well. This is all a result of people losing their jobs and just not having the funds to pay their rent.
So the Attorney General did announce the other day about funds to help people with representation costs- for people who are getting evicted. We have learned through the Chief Judge of the District Court that people do better when they come in with representation- specifically people who are finding themselves in the position of being evicted. So having those funds available for representation will be a good thing.
I also serve on the Joint Committee to End Homelessness, I’ve been there for about 5 years, and one thing we know is that to prevent homelessness we don’t want people to become homeless to begin with! So keeping these people in their residences is our first priority.
Rick Weldon: That’s great and even just the little things, like right now normally you’d be attending a bunch of meetings and forums which you are having to do a lot of by video camera.
Delegate Krimm: Yes I will be joining the municipal leaders later on this week for their monthly meeting- virtually of course- and I will hear their concerns. This time of year is when we start those meetings in the community- meeting with the board of education and the county executive and these things will continue to happen virtually. It is an important opportunity for us to hear the concerns of the community. We have had some instruction from leadership on how we will move forward and the operative word is really flexibility. We could start in one mode and then have to change things in Annapolis. We are working on getting our bills together and we have been cautioned not to have too many because of course we probably will be working in a virtual environment. The important part is that we will be working- we have every intention to have the General Assembly Session in 2021.
Rick Weldon: So for our Members that are viewing this, you and I have known each other for a long time. I have had the honor of working directly with you, going back to your days of advising and providing constituent service for Delegate Sue Hecht and then Delegate Galen Clagget. You and I also served together when I was helping Mayor McClement set up his government in the City of Frederick with you serving on the Board of Alderman. So I may have been the least surprised person in the City of Frederick/Frederick County when Speaker Adrienne Jones tapped you to fill a very important role in the House Leadership. Having the good fortune to serve seven and a half years in the General Assembly I understand that having direct access to the decision process and the legislative process is a very important thing. I think it would be good for us to take a few minutes to talk about your leadership role and why that matters beyond being an elected Delegate, which in itself is a significant opportunity to influence policy. Would you talk about that?
Delegate Krimm: Of course. At the beginning of the year, she asked me to be Vice-Chair of the Appropriations Committee which allowed me to serve on the Capital Budget Subcommittee. The chairs and vice-chairs of the four subcommittees serve on the Capital Budget Committee of Appropriations. That was very important to me because I felt like Frederick County needed a voice on that capital budget subcommittee. Then a little while into the session she asked me to be the House Chair for the Joint Committee on Audits and Evaluations.
So since you’ve been there Rick, they have expanded that committee. It is not only audits but also evaluations as well; they look at programs that are occurring right now and see if they are working properly and if they need improvement. We are going to have our first presentation of an evaluation at the meeting tomorrow (10/20/2020) and we will hear from the Department of Health and the auditors of course on programs related to prescription drugs. We will then hear from the evaluators on the parole and probation program in Baltimore City. That was requested by leadership specifically- for us to look at that program. We are going to hear a lot of interesting facts about crime and about how a significant percentage of those people who are involved in those crimes are also currently on parole and probation. So we are going to have an opportunity to talk to the department of course and the evaluators to see if legislation is necessary here. It will be a long meeting but we will do it virtually and I’m looking forward to hearing about those topics. We (the chairmen) had a pre-met with the auditors and evaluators and I think it is going to be very interesting.
What that position allowed me to do is to be a part of the decision-making process on appropriations and I think that really helped us in our funding for this coming year- especially in the Capital Budget area. There were some cuts to the public safety facility as well as the hospital and I was able to get those cuts restored in the meetings. Additionally, I got some money – four hundred thousand dollars- for the West Side and for the Regional Park. I look at that as an economic development opportunity, of course, post-pandemic, where we are trying to get the kids more athletic fields to play sports on and to draw people to the West Side. When I was an Alderman I served on the Golden Mile Alliance and I was very committed to the West Side and we are starting to see some development in that area, especially with the new theater (Warehouse Cinemas) and I’m hoping this will help.
So that’s what I’ve been able to do, it’s more work but it’s good work and it allows Frederick County to have a seat on the table. As a growing county that’s what we need, we do very well economically and on our education front, we are very good and we need to remind people how good we are and how we deserve support.
Rick Weldon: So I love the change in the committee. There has always been a joint committee on audit and the focus is almost always financial. I love the evaluation component because now you are looking at program outcomes, not just program costs. I can’t think of a better-suited person to be a house chair of that committee because I’ve always known you to be a very detailed researcher. I think you are perfectly positioned to be a really good steward of our resources and program outcomes.
So I want to talk to you about the 2021 session that convenes in early January. There are some huge policy issues on your agenda. Some like ‘how are we going to help small businesses recover’ because we both know we are going to be in a business recovery mode come January. There isn’t some magic solution to this between now and the start of session. Additionally, things like police reform you know the issues we’ve seen and felt even here in Downtown Frederick relative to concern over law enforcement in the community. And of course the 2022 and beyond structural deficit. Would you talk about the big issues you see coming up in committee and on the floor this year?
Delegate Krimm: Well I think we have been updated throughout the pandemic about the fiscal impact on the budget. Of course we are going to be looking to the feds hopefully for some more stimulus money and more money to come back to the state. We can’t count on that of course but we are really hoping that happens.
Secretary Brinkley presented this to us as a two year recovery- where we will need to look into the future and try to parse this out as best we can over a two year period. So for the rest of this term for the representatives, we will be in this mode of trying to get our budget balanced again and trying to get out of the structural deficit.
One thing that I do want to mention to the Chamber Members is that Chairmen Derek Davis of Economic Matters is putting together a recovery plan. So if any Members do have ideas that they would like to pass along I would encourage them to contact my office. Please reach out to let us know what you would like to see in the recovery package and how we can best help you. CHairman Davis and I have worked very well together- we were able to do the franchise agreement legislation for craft breweries- and I will never forget how committed he was working that out. I feel that I have a good relationship with him and I can certainly pass along any suggestions your Members may have.
Police accountability will be a big issue this session. Speaker Jones did have the foresight to put together a workgroup that has been meeting. I do a newsletter as often as I can and I have been updating people in my newsletter. I think we will see some significant legislation. I think a big bone of contention may be the law enforcement officer’s bill of rights- that seems to have sparked the most controversy so far. So I think we will have a detailed discussion about that and all of these suggestions from this workgroup will be going to the house judiciary committee and will probably be cross-filed in the senate.
So I had four bills pass the house last year- two bills made it all the way through the Senate before we had to disband. The two bills that passed the house but didn’t make it through the senate I will bring back in the posture they were when they left the house – as they were amended.
I will also be doing a bill on telework. I have been working very hard on this issue and I think we have seen a dramatic decrease in traffic congestion as a result of the stay at home order. I think we should not miss this opportunity to try to reduce traffic congestion. I know we have the ep3 out there but even if everything goes well with the P3 we are looking at about 10 years before things really change for Frederick County. So in the meantime, I would really like to see some reduction in our traffic congestion and I think a good telework policy could do that.
We started by getting data from the Maryland Transportation Institute at the University of Maryland and people would be surprised to hear that in order for Marylanders to have free flow traffic- not just on 270 but all across the state- if we could reduce traffic by 5-15% during peak times we could have free-flow traffic. So we are working towards that goal and right now we have achieved that because so many people are teleworking- we just need to sustain it in some way.
Another benefit to this is the environment. We have seen a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions which has been great. There is a health benefit and it is a climate change issue so the way I am going to start is by making sure we have a good telework policy in the state. I don’t believe in asking the private sector to do anything that the government sector is not doing. Hopefully, we will create a robust telework policy in the state and then get the private sector on board.
We had a conference call the other day with the federal personnel and they said that telework has worked extremely well for them. They have a survey out there right now of all the federal employees in the county so hopefully, we can extrapolate some data from that survey. We have also agreed to share data with these personnel directors.
Rick Weldon: Even traditional employers love it. Right here at the Chamber- our little team of 5- today as we are recording this our tech team is managing the recording from home. I’m sitting here in a big empty building. All of our employers- with the exceptions of customer-facing like hospitality and manufacturing- our employers have adapted and our employees have thrived in this environment. So there are definitely environmental benefits, a traffic reduction benefit, and there’s the fact that employers understand now that good employees with integrity work just as hard at home as they do in their office.
I think we have talked about all the things I wanted to cover with you today but here is what I want to tell members: I try to go to Annapolis multiple times during session. I am always welcome in Delegate Krimm’s office to talk about the concerns of the business community in Frederick County. So Carol, I would like to say thank you on behalf of our Members that when I do come down, you and your team have always been welcoming and open to create those opportunities for us to have these conversations
Delegate Krimm: My pleasure- it’s my job! I want to do my best for Frederick County and my big priority is to bring as much money back here as we can!
CAROL L. KRIMM
Democrat, District 3A, Frederick County
House Office Building, Room 422
6 Bladen St., Annapolis, MD 21401
(410) 841-3472, (301) 858-3472
1-800-492-7122, ext. 3472 (toll-free)
e-mail: carol.krimm@house.state.md.us
fax: (410) 841-3412, (301) 858-3412
Frederick Chamber Insights is a news outlet of the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce. For more information about membership, programs and initiatives, please visit our website.