Comptroller
The Comptroller is one of three statewide offices with power over our spending. The Comptroller oversees spending and payments for the State of Maryland and is one of three votes on the Board of Public Works, which approves state spending.
We sent our questionnaire to all filed candidates in the Democratic Primary. Candidates displayed in black in white did not respond to our questionnaire by the submission deadline. Responses marked with a [...] indicate the candidate didn't directly answer yes or no, but may have provided a written explanation. Responses were edited for typos, but not substance.
You can find the full candidate surveys below, or scroll down to see candidate responses side by side for agree/disagree questions.
CANDIDATES FOR Comptroller
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Answer Comparison
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Maryland and its jurisdictions should be required to “fix-it-first,” funding deferred maintenance of bridges and roads and safety retrofits like road diets, sidewalks, ADA compliance, and other infrastructure prioritizing vulnerable road users before spending on new roads and infrastructure.
Maryland should adopt a funding rubric for all transportation investment that follows a modal hierarchy prioritizing pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit riders over personal automobile use, and mandates that these investments prioritize racial and economic equity.
These priorities are key, but I also believe it must also be done regionally. Multimodal transportation is important around the state, including in Cumberland and Salisbury, but cars are also more necessary in these areas as well and create a rigid rubric would not necessarily account for these variable needs around the state.
Highway User Revenues continue to decrease as cars become more efficient, and semi-autonomous driving technology is allowing more comfortable long distance commutes. To address this, Maryland should introduce and income-based Vehicle Miles Traveled tax.
TBD: I think this is an interesting idea, especially as EVs increase, and believe we should undertake a pilot program like in Oregon to better determine how much revenue it would bring and if there were unforeseen disproportionate impacts.
Maryland should require and fund all-ages-and abilities bicycle infrastructure in retrofits of existing roads and construction of new roads, including fully separated infrastructure or sidepaths/trails on collector roads, arterial roads, state highways, and interstates.
This should happen to create a network and safe infrastructure but should not be done on areas where the rest of the project will never be built out - leaving ½ mile of sidewalk or sidepath along a state highway and then nothing else for 120 miles.
There has been a dramatic increase in car crashes that injure and kill people walking and biking, who are then frequently sued by a driver’s insurance. Maryland should move from a contributory negligence to a strict liability model for crashes involving vulnerable road users.
I believe we should move to a comparative negligence standard like in nearly every other state.
Paired with a requirement for income-based fines, Maryland should authorize jurisdictions to utilize additional types of automated enforcement like bus lane cameras and stop sign cameras, remove geographic restrictions, and allow a reduced threshold for triggering speed cameras.
Maryland should allow local jurisdictions to lower their own speed limits based on roadway typology instead of based on expensive engineering studies for each road segment, and should set a statewide upper urban speed limit of 25 miles per hour.
Agree to the first part; undecided on the second - if the goal is to give local jurisdictions more power to determine safe speed limits, then enacting the second part would be contrary to that idea.
Maryland should require employers provide “Parking Cash-Out,” valuing the cost of parking subsidized or paid for by employers and allowing employees the option of taking that benefit as a cash payout in the amount of the parking subsidy instead.
Maryland should require jurisdictions to eliminate parking minimums and institute parking maximums in new development, as well as require the cost of parking be unbundled from rent, giving individuals the choice to rent without paying for parking.
Agree to the first part; disagree on the second part because I do not think Maryland should necessarily be involved in how landlords structure this type of payment.
It’s widely accepted that single family zoning advances racial and economic segregation. Maryland should ban single family zoning at the state level, allowing both single family and multifamily residences to be built in all zoning areas.
Restrictive zoning contributes to racial and economic segregation as well higher home costs. At the same time, neither Maryland’s anemic state planning department nor its legislature has expertise on zoning issues because these issues have been handled at the local level. Therefore, I believe that in a new Administration with a more robust planning department, the General Assembly should work with that department to study zoning and housing in areas around the state and beginning to move forward with statewide requirements. For instance, I do believe that the state should work with counties to enact more zoning laws that allow for ADUs in more circumstances. This legislative session, we had the first bill that I have ever seen introduced to do just that - begin a conversation about being more involved in zoning at the state level and allow for ADUs by right. I look forward to encouraging this type of study and discussion and action if I am the next Comptroller.