Western Maryland Delegation Introduces Bill to Exempt Allegany, Garrett Counties from Minimum Wage Increases

Maryland Senator George C. Edwards introduced a bill in the Maryland General Assembly aimed at establishing a minimum wage rate for Allegany and Garrett Counties which would exempt these counties from following the current slate of scheduled increases.

In March 2019, Maryland lawmakers approved a law gradually increasing the state’s minimum wage to $15 per hour. The first bump was initiated on Jan. 1, 2020 and took the minimum wage from $10.10 per hour to $11.00. Following Jan. 2020, yearly increases average $0.75 per year until 2025 when the minimum wage will become $15.00 per hour for large businesses. Small businesses with less than 15 employees will have until 2026 to reach the $15 minimum wage.

Prior to being passed, Republican Governor Larry Hogan vetoed the bill suggesting the decision would make Maryland less competitive and could cause low-wage workers to lose their jobs. However, within 24 hours of Gov. Hogan’s veto, the Democratic-majority General Assembly overrode the veto.

Not all members of the General Assembly were in support of the bill. Four of the General Assembly members who voted against it represent Allegany and Garrett counties. The Western Maryland delegation, as they are known, is made up of Del. Jason Buckel, Del. Michael McKay, Del. Wendell Beitzel, and Sen. Edwards. All four of these representatives are Republicans.

At the Western Maryland delegation’s legislative wrap-up breakfast in April 2019, Del. Buckel told those in attendance the minimum wage increase bill “was the worst bill for business passed this year.” As a work-around solution, Buckel and his colleagues from Western Maryland offered amendments that proposed “regionalization.”

These amendments never made it out of committee, reported the Cumberland Times-News. 

Buckel and the others believed the desire to increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour was purely political. “Why do you think they called it the ‘Fight for 15?’ The fight for $14.50 doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. The activists came up with it because its easy to put on a button,” Buckel told constituents.

Buckel has publicly referred to the Maryland General Assembly as an “anti-business environment where job-killing regulations, taxes, and bans on, well, just about anything, are the norm.”

Moving to this year’s legislative session, which began on Jan. 8, there is renewed energy on the Western Maryland delegation’s part to stop the minimum wage increase. Sen. Edwards bill, SB-0862 is cross-filed with Buckel, Beitzel, and McKay’s similar bill, HB-0965. Both were filed on Feb. 3, 2020.

According to the Maryland General Assembly website, the bills “impose a local government mandate which is a directive in a bill requiring a local government unit to perform a task or assume a responsibility that has a discernible fiscal impact on the local government unit.”

The Western Maryland delegation hopes that the bill would become effective on Oct. 1, 2020, three months before the next scheduled minimum wage increase from $11.00 per hour to $11.75.

For more information about Sen. Edwards’ bill and the cross-filed house bill, go here.