Assuming office under the cloud of a dim financial outlook and an impending change in federal leadership, Montgomery County Council President Kate Stewart (D-Dist. 4) is well aware that many challenges await in 2025. But just what they may be is not yet clear, she says.
“I think the biggest challenge we have is that we definitely have some knowns, and there are a lot of unknowns,” Stewart told MoCo360 in an exclusive interview Thursday.
Unanimously elected council president by her fellow councilmembers on Dec. 3, Stewart has been a councilmember since December 2022 and council vice president since December 2023. She is the chair of the council’s Government Operations and Fiscal Policy committee and serves on its Transportation and Environment Committee. Before her election to the council, she was the mayor of Takoma Park from 2015 through 2022.
Stewart represents District 4, which includes Takoma Park, parts of Silver Spring, Montgomery Hills, Kensington, Garrett Park, North Bethesda and parts of Chevy Chase.
Upcoming challenges
When asked what she anticipates as the biggest challenges facing the county, Stewart cited Republican President-elect Donald Trump’s upcoming administration.
“We know we’re facing a second Trump administration, and we know that is already impacting many members of our community, whether or not he follows through on the actual threats of mass deportations, the closing of federal assets in Montgomery County, laying off or reducing the federal workforce [and] threats on the LGBTQ+ community, especially trans individuals,” Stewart said. “All of those things are already having a huge impact on our community even before he’s taken office. What we don’t know is, once he’s in office, how quickly or what he will actually be able to follow through on.”
The all-Democrat 11-member council has voiced concerns about potential challenges and issues that may arise once Trump assumes office on Jan. 20, including the status of federal agencies in the county and immigrant rights. County Executive Marc Elrich (D) has said he is concerned that cuts to the federal work force could increase budget constraints, which may lead to a call for tax increases. Several LGBTQ+ county residents and advocates expressed concern to MoCo360 last month that their rights may be compromised under the Trump administration.
Stewart said she is evaluating the resources that are available to at-risk county residents and how the county can work with community partners to support residents and increase access to these resources.
A grim state budget outlook is the other major challenge that Stewart said she is anticipating as the county faces growing needs and limited funds. MoCo360 spoke to Stewart the morning after Montgomery County Public Schools [MCPS] Superintendent Thomas Taylor announced his proposed $3.61 billion operating budget for fiscal year 2026 – representing a nearly 9% increase over current spending.
“We know even with flat enrollment rates over the last few years, there has been an increase in the number of students with complex needs that need to be addressed,” Stewart said. “At the same time, in the county, we have seen a huge increase in the unhoused population. We are dealing with increases in eviction rates, housing instability [and] food insecurity, and how do we address all of those needs?”
Stewart said she believes the many priorities that she and other councilmembers will bring to the budget process are interconnected. While acknowledging that addressing the proposed MCPS budget will be a challenge, she said she appreciates Taylor’s transparency.
“While it’s a very large ask that has been put out there and will be challenging as we work through the county’s overall budget, I appreciate [Taylor’s] frankness about what the needs are in the schools and what we need to do to really just get back to the minimum of what we should be doing, particularly when we’re looking at special needs educators and our emerging English learners,” Stewart said.
Addressing the county’s housing crisis will continue to be an important issue for the council. Stewart said the council may move forward with some options proposed in the Planning Board’s Attainable Housing Strategies Initiative, which aims to increase the county’s supply of “missing middle” housing, but that no legislation has been formally introduced.
“We’ve been doing a lot to invest in housing over the last two years, and I think we need to do more. It’s not enough,” Stewart said. “We have a number of ideas now from the attainable housing strategies that were presented to us. We’ve got feedback from members of the public, and I do think that conversation will move forward.”
A longstanding priority for Stewart that she plans to tackle while council president is the mental health crisis in the county. She said it is important that she and other officials work with the community to understand the complexity of current mental health challenges affecting residents, and to invest in prevention and awareness efforts in addition to crisis response.
“Mental health cuts across pretty much almost every county government agency we have, including our schools, and we have some terrific partners on the ground doing this work,” Stewart said. “So right now, we are really listening to many of those partners, learning about the work that they’re doing, as well as where they see the gaps in what we need to be doing in the county. We are preparing to bring members of the community together to have these conversations … we hope to focus on this effort for the remainder of the year [2025].”
Stewart said she is excited about the potential for increased economic development in the county — particularly in the bioscience sphere — citing the opening of the Institute for Health Computing in North Bethesda, and plans for other life science hubs in the county.
“It’s just really exciting to see how many researchers, scientists are here doing incredible work,” Stewart said.
When it comes to economic development, another major concern is how the Trump administration’s plans to cut the federal workforce will impact agencies located in the county, such as the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda and the Food and Drug Administration in Silver Spring. Stewart is also concerned about how Trump’s proposed tariffs could impact local small businesses, which she said are “the backbone of Montgomery County.”
“There is a big question mark,” she said. “We’re going to have to keep a close eye on that and see what we can do in the county, as well as working with the governor and the state to continue to make sure that we stay on this track.”
While Stewart is realistic about the upcoming challenges, she believes her fellow councilmembers have made progress over the past two years, and are ready to do more.
“There are some real opportunities to advance some issues we all care deeply about in our communities,” she said.
