Hi Kurt
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Although POS has been a target numerous times over the years, i can't find any current specific information about this issue:
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http://articles.baltimoresun.com/keyword/program-open-space
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The DLS is portrayed in the action alert link in your email as the perpetrator of this action apparently for this year's session, but my understanding is that this agency only vets bills that are submitted by legislators and does not initiate legislation.
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The action alert link states:
The Department of Legislative Services performs policy and fiscal analysis for the legislature. It has recommended diverting all open space funding into the general fund.
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But if you go to the DLS home page [http://dls.state.md.us/] and follow the link for Fiscal and Policy Analysis you find this quote:
"Legal, programmatic, policy, and economic and fiscal impact information for LEGISLATION [my caps] introduced in each legislative session can be found in the fiscal and policy notes developed by analysts in the Office of Policy Analysis." Which again seems to indicate that this agency is not initiating policy only vetting policy contained in proposed legislation. There is also this quote "To access the [fiscal and policy] note on a particular bill, you will need to know the bill number and the year in which the bill was introduced." It would have been helpful if the group [1000 Friends] proposing the action alert had provided this info. If they have, it's not easily accessable. It's also very likely that if this was proposed by a Republican lawmaker, as it well might have been, it will have minimal chances of being enacted by the MD General Assembly.
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I would like to see more specific info about this issue before commiting myself to the proposed action alert. Groups such as "1000 Friends" need to carefully vet their facts if they want to be taken seriously. Thanks.
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Jim Speicher
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