After serving a year as the president of the Montgomery County Council, Andrew Friedson (D-Dist. 1) says he’s proud of what the council accomplished in 2024 – including increasing public engagement in the annual county budget process and demanding more accountability from Montgomery County Public Schools.
As the Bethesda resident reverts to his role as councilmember, he said he believes the council and the county are ready to handle whatever the new year may bring.
“We are heading into inevitably challenging times. I think that we are prepared. I am more optimistic in Montgomery County in being able to weather those storms, because of the people that we have here, because the partnerships that we’ve built here, because of the purpose-driven leaders who make up Montgomery County,” Friedson told MoCo360 on Tuesday.
MoCo360 sat down with Friedson to discuss the wins and challenges from his term as president, which ended Dec. 3, and his vision for the future as a councilmember. Some answers have been edited for length and clarity.
During your term as president, you prided yourself on increasing transparency and public engagement. How did you see that in action this year?
We saw unprecedented outreach and engagement. It was one of my main focuses as council president. I think it is at the center of what government should be at any level, and especially what local government should be, and we did see it in action. This year, we saw more people testifying in more opportunities to testify on the [annual operating] budget than ever before.
We understand that no level of engagement on its own is perfect, that no individual effort will reach every single person, but it’s critical to meet residents on their terms, on their turf, and in a place like Montgomery County that speaks over 100 languages … we have to make sure it’s in their language too.
You’ve been a councilmember since 2018. How was the role of president different than serving as a councilmember?
As a councilmember, you’re focused on the residents, specifically who you represent, and you are focused on the policy priorities that you have, the commitments that you’ve made, the policy ideas that you have. As council president, you have a significant responsibility to the body and to the institution, and I feel very strongly that it is the role of the council president to facilitate collaboration and collegiality amongst the body, to recognize that we are merely momentary caretakers of this position and of the roles in which we serve. It’s the council president’s job to remind the body of that, to build consensus and to make sure that we’re moving forward in the best interest of our residents.
It is rare that the two roles conflict. But they do at times, and it’s important to separate out the councilmember priorities from the council president responsibilities and to vote the way that I vote as an individual councilmember, but to [also] facilitate a process to move the body forward as the presiding officer over this storied institution.
During your term, the council was required to take a larger oversight role over Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) than it typically has done following a sexual harassment scandal involving a former middle school principal. What did you learn about how the relationship between the council and the school system could be improved?
The relationship between the County Council and the school system and the Board of Education has always been complicated. It’s complicated because our schools are our most indispensable public resource, because it is the most significant funding priority that we have, because of how critical public education is to our children and to our community. It’s also complicated because of the way that state law structures the council’s position … we have limited authority, and we are reminded of that limited authority each and every day.
But we do have authority. We do have the ability to decide how much funding we provide above [the state-mandated] maintenance of effort, and we have funded MCPS in recent years at historic levels over maintenance of effort, and we brought with that this year heightened levels of accountability and transparency. It was a commitment that I made as council president, that we would live by the county’s motto, “gardez bien,” — guard well — and that we would guard the public resources well, and that we would ensure transparency and accountability.
Any lessons learned from the fiscal year 2025 MCPS budget process? Will the increased oversight mechanisms impact the relationship between the council and the school system?
We moved forward with adding transparency and accountability language, at my direction, with consultation and support of the [education] committee and of all council colleagues, for the first time ever. We had never included any level of metrics, any level of accountability language in the budget resolution. We did this year for the first time ever, and I think that is a positive, significant step in the right direction. We added funding for the Office of Inspector General to have a dedicated team focus focused exclusively on Montgomery County Public Schools, and we saw the benefits of that with the addition of significant numbers of joint committee hearings focused specifically on the findings of the [county] Office of Inspector General related to MCPS, and the public benefited from that daylight that we provided to those reports.
We are changing the way we do business. That is part of what is required of us as we have learned. The more we dig into the challenges of such a large school system, the more we understand how much oversight is needed, oversight by the Board of Education, oversight by the County Council, and accountability and transparency that the public deserves, that our teachers, our educators and staff, our families and our taxpayers expect and deserve.
What has your experience been working with MCPS Superintendent Thomas Taylor?
Dr. Taylor has brought new energy and a new perspective to the school system. He is communicative and collaborative, and I’ve really appreciated his openness to address issues and to work with us and to work with me, specifically, as well as other colleagues.
He is digging into the base budget of MCPS, which is sorely needed, and into questioning the way things have always been done. There’s a lot more work to be done. There are many more questions than we have answers, but the early returns have been positive. I look forward to continuing to work with him and appreciate that he seems very much willing to embrace change and to be open to a level of oversight that is required of a school system of this size and scope.
Unsurprisingly, finalizing the county budget was one of the council’s most controversial decisions this year. Councilmembers, for the most part, particularly disagreed with County Executive Marc Elrich’s proposal. Could anything have been done differently?
I think the process that the council took was a very good one, a very thoughtful one, and landed us in a place that demonstrated clear consensus. Did we ultimately land on the budget that I would have written myself? No, there were many of my priorities that ultimately didn’t make the cut because they didn’t have the consensus of a majority or a supermajority of colleagues, but do I think that we ended up with a budget that reflected the overwhelming will of a super majority of the council, absolutely, and that’s what the legislative process is, and that is what my job was as council president.
Ultimately, the decision was, should we add funding to MCPS? Is our public education system worth funding at a level that we thought was needed to meet the demands of the moment? I think we ultimately landed in a good place. It wasn’t the exact place that each individual
councilmember wanted [it] to be. But we landed in a place that avoided tax increases, funded MCPS at historic levels and stayed true to our core priorities, while maintaining our fiscal policies and maintaining a reserve level that will help us to weather the impending storm ahead.
What legislative item or initiative are you most proud of from this past year?
When I took over as council president, I made a commitment that we were going to be bold, that we were going to embrace economic development, that we were going to recognize that Montgomery County needs to be intentional and strategic in addressing the fact that we are not as strong as the sum of our parts, that we are not growing at a level economically that we should be given the enormous assets that we have, the unrivaled and unparalleled talent and resources that we have.
I put forward the largest single economic development package in the history of the county, the $20 million new jobs initiative with three funds – a job creation fund, innovation fund and a founders equity fund – to send a strong signal that if you’re willing to invest in Montgomery County, Montgomery County wants to invest in you. We are in a competitive environment, and we want to step up, and we want to be a place where families want to move, where businesses want to locate, that is vibrant and that is growing, and that is building an economy that can meet the needs and provide the resources for the services that we pride ourselves on.
Is there one legislative item that, specifically in terms of compromise among councilmembers, you’re really proud of?
I would say that the FAITH [zoning text amendment] that I worked on with [current Council President] Kate Stewart was really collaborative, working with faith partners, working with colleagues, working with housing providers, talking through the various questions and dynamics that we had to move us towards an outcome that I think is going to yield really positive results moving forward by making sure that we are leveraging resources within the community.
We have churches and synagogues and mosques, educational institutions that have huge parcels of land, limited resources, and lots of mission-based, purpose-driven people who want to be part of the solution [of building more housing] but haven’t been given the tools to actually solve the problem. And what we’ve done is allowed for those tools to take hold and to take place, and it’s something that is going to yield a lot of fruit moving forward.
Was there a particular piece of legislation or issue that drew more public engagement than expected?
We had a lot more engagement on the budget than we had seen before from a much wider breadth of people, and we’ve had a lot more engagement on housing, and at times that engagement has been challenging. The temperature has risen, as it often does when it comes to housing policy, understandably, given the importance of housing in each of our individual and families’ lives and also in the needs within our community. But ultimately, engagement is a good thing.
I wish everybody was as interested in local government … and providing as many opportunities for as many people to be part of the process is really critical. That’s why we opened up more opportunities during the budget, we had exponentially more people engaging in different ways, and I’m very proud of that, and we engage them even before at earlier parts of the process, particularly when it comes to housing. And I think that’s something that should be a model moving forward.
Some of your colleagues have put forward a proposal that would require the council president to step down from that role if choosing to run for office. Do you support the measure?
It’s long been the tradition on the council that the council president not run for another office because of the concern that the position could be used for political benefit, and because of the time, that it would be difficult to honor the commitment to the body and to the institution and to the county to serve as council president while also running competitively for a higher office.
I am very much in support of the reason behind it. If the [proposed] rule comes for a vote, I would support it … . It wasn’t my proposal, but I very much support the tradition of that expectation amongst the body, whether the majority as a body enforces that, or whether a rule enforces that. … I think that the point is important, which is to say, the council presidency is not a job that should be used for political benefit, and it requires time and commitment that is difficult to be distracted by a competitive race for another office.
You still have two years in your term. What are you looking forward to working on?
I’ve spent the last two weeks really focusing on a number of important initiatives that we have to move forward. We have some exciting proposals that we have been working on for quite some time related to office vacancies and how to address those challenges. We have a number of areas of housing that we will continue to focus on and address. As chair of the Planning, Housing and Parks committee, I’ll continue to be at the forefront of all of the conversations related to housing, which are significant. We have a number of ways that we want to address and continue to look into our aging adult population, the fastest-growing community in Montgomery County, increasing by 9,000 residents a year, and making sure that Montgomery County remains a community where our residents can age in place and age in the community with dignity and vitality and security.
We also have a lot of work to do when it comes to public safety and making sure that our residents feel safe and that each and every member of our community feels that they are a welcomed part of every corner of Montgomery County. We’re working collaboratively with our law enforcement partners and our community leaders and our local residents and neighbors to ensure that we’re keeping our community safe. I’ve said frequently that public safety is a team sport, and we need to continue to build and strengthen that team and make sure that everybody feels a part of that team.
Will you run for county executive in 2026?
I haven’t made any formal decisions. But I continue to believe that there are significant opportunities to serve the county, and it’s something that I feel very passionate about, and I’ll continue to decide how I best can serve the county and the community, and the only place I’ve ever called home.
