The Montgomery County Council voted unanimously Tuesday to approve a $20 million special appropriation focused on creating jobs and supporting businesses in the county.
The Jobs, Opportunities and Business Support (J.O.B.S.) Initiative, sponsored by council President Andrew Friedson (D-Dist. 1), will create three funds with money from the county’s undesignated reserves in the 2024 budget: a $10 million job creation fund, a $7 million innovation fund and a $3 million equity fund.
“This is very much a complementary effort to really move our economy forward to make a strong and powerful statement that if you invest in Montgomery County, Montgomery County wants to invest in you,” Friedson said before the vote. “We understand that in order to have the resources that we need for the priorities that we share, we have to have a thriving local economy in order to do that.”
Vice President Kate Stewart (D-Dist. 4), Gabe Albornoz (D-At-large), Marilyn Balcombe (D-Dist. 2), Will Jawando (D-At-large), Dawn Luedtke (D-Dist. 7), Kristin Mink (D-Dist. 5) and Laurie-Anne Sayles (D-At-large) co-sponsored the legislation.
“I have heard [Montgomery County] described by many leaders in our business and economic development communities … as being in an economic ditch,” Albornoz said. “We have to acknowledge that we are behind. … We do have to take bold action, we do have to take bigger swings than we had been taking before, and we need to do that now.”
The job fund will provide employers with $10,000 for each new job created, as long as it is salaried at $100,000 or more. Employers would be required to create a minimum of five jobs, with a limit of $500,000 in grants per company. An employer could receive $12,000 per job if it is located in one of the county’s Equity Focus Areas, which are characterized by Montgomery Planning as “high concentrations of lower-income people of color, who may also speak English less than very well.” The Equity Focus Areas are primarily located along the I-270 corridor, the Route 29 corridor and in the southeastern part of the county.
The innovation fund will grant up to $100,000 to companies working to develop new technologies, designs and processes. The equity fund will grant up to $80,000 to businesses in the Equity Focus Areas that are considered to be in early or growth stages.
Councilmember Evan Glass (D-At-large) voiced criticism of the council using one-time reserve funding in fiscal year 2024 while in the process of deliberations over the proposed $7.1 billion county budget for fiscal year 2025, which starts July 1. He said he supported what the initiative was trying to do but proposed considering its inclusion in next year’s budget.
“I know what the will of the body is. It doesn’t seem that the will is there to do the budget the proper way,” Glass said.
Glass referenced cuts to proposed spending for construction in county schools, and said he believes reserve funding should be focused on one-time expenditures.
“We’re looking at [using] $20 million in reserves. You know, an auditorium at Woodward High School needs that money,” Glass said, referencing the new school under construction in North Bethesda. Facing budget issues, the school board has proposed holding off on building Woodward’s auditorium until after the school opens as a non-recommended budget reduction.
But other councilmembers said the time is now to put the initiative into action.
“We should have done this a couple of years ago,” councilmember Sidney Katz (D-Dist. 3) said. “We need to do it now. … Bureaucracies take much too long to do anything.”
Jawando pushed back on Glass’ comments about the budget process.
“The suggestion that all of us don’t want to fund the Woodward [High School] auditorium, which we do, is also a distraction. It’s not as simple as that,” Jawando said. “Don’t get distracted by that. This is a good investment, whether we make it now or a few weeks from now.”
Glass ultimately voted in favor of the appropriation, but maintained his critique of how the council was going about it.
Friedson said during a March 11 press conference that the intent behind the initiative is to align the county’s various economic development strategic plans.
“When you have seven strategic plans … you don’t have a plan. You’ve got a bunch of ideas, a bunch of people going in different directions,” Friedson said. “So the idea was to bring everybody together, to put it under the auspices of our designated economic development organization, Montgomery County Economic Development Corp., to make sure that businesses on the front end had a role in the development of this effort.”
