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Yahoo
2 hours ago
- General
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Kalyanaraman becomes latest to leave Maryland Department of Health
Dr. Nilesh Kalyanaraman testified in March on nursing home inspections to the House Health and Government Operations Committee. (Photo by Danielle J. Brown/Maryland Matters) The deputy secretary of public health services is leaving the Maryland Department of Health this week after two years serving under the Moore Administration and more than a decade in both private and public health services in Maryland, state officials confirmed Monday. Tuesday will be Dr. Nilesh Kalyanaraman's last day with the department. 'We thank Dr. Kalyanaraman for raising his hand to serve the people of Maryland — especially through the COVID pandemic — as a dedicated champion for public health,' according to a spokesperson for Gov. Wes Moore. His departure is the latest in a string that began in February, when then-Secretary Laura Herrera Scott left amid several controversies at the department, including oversight issues at Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center, a high-security hospital that has been riddled with complaints of patient abuse and violence. Secretary Meena Seshamani, a former top official with the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, took the reins of the department in April. Just last week, Erin McCullen left her position as the department's chief of staff, a position she's held since 2023. McCullen also worked in the department in various positions from 2013 through 2017. Chase Cook also left his job last week as the department's director of communications, following several years in the position. Former CMS administrator takes helm of controversy-laden health department As the deputy secretary of public health services, Kalyanaraman has spoken on a wide variety of health and safety issues throughout the years — from heat illnesses and dental health workforce to bird flu threat levels and more. Before working with the Moore administration, Kalyanaraman served as the health officer for Anne Arundel County from September 2019 through March 2023, leading the county through the COVID-19 pandemic. 'He was a really, really good resource for the issues that we dealt with during COVID,' said Sen. Pam Beidle (D-Anne Arundel), chair of the Senate Finance Committee. 'He was always willing to do a webinar with us and our constituents. I think he did a really good job guiding our county through COVID.' Before his time in local government, Kalyanaraman served from 2012 to 2019 as the chief health officer for Baltimore-based Health Care for the Homeless, a nonprofit that provides health care and housing support to 10,000 people in the region annually. He leaves a health department that's trying to pull itself out of a series of controversies and challenges. During the 2025 legislative session, lawmakers grilled Kalyanaraman for answers about one of those controversies — a significant backlog of nursing home annual inspections. Kalyanaraman argued that the department had been making progress on the backlog of state inspections, but lawmakers remain concerned that some facilities had not received annual inspections for over four years, putting vulnerable senior citizens at risk of inadequate care. Kalyanaraman declined Monday to comment on his departure. Neither McCullen nor Cook responded to a request for comment. But McCullen said in a social media post about her departure from the health department that she was 'filled with immense gratitude for the privilege of serving alongside such dedicated public servants.' 'The experience has been invaluable, and I am forever thankful for the opportunity to contribute to the health and well-being of Marylanders alongside some of the best people you will ever meet,' she said. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Sunday marks start of new laws, end of rush to courthouse for child sex abuse victims
Gov. Wes Moore (D) signing legislation at one of the five bill-signing sessions after the 2025 General Assembly. (Photo by Bryan P. Sears/Maryland Matters) When you wake up Sunday, it will be harder to collect damages from the state for child sexual abuse and easier to find relief at a pick-your-own farm, new rules will start the long process of slowing utility rate increases and a new law will again delay the start of a paid family and medical leave program And chromite will be the official state mineral, a fact you can toast with the new official state cocktail, the orange crush. Those are the most notable of just over 100 new laws that take effect on June 1, many of them duplicates. They range from local alcohol and bond bills to a severe retrenchment of a 2023 law on damages for victims of child sexual abuse that could have left the state open to billions in legal expenses. It's the first batch from the 849 bills from the 2025 General Assembly that have been signed into law, most of which will take effect on July 1 or Oct. 1. But this first batch included some significant legislation, the most high-profile of which may have been House Bill 1378 which overhauls the Child Victims Act that passed to great fanfare just two years ago. Attorneys in and outside of Maryland spent the last week rushing to courthouses around the state to file claims for victims of institutional child sex abuse, working to beat the June 1 law that will cut potential awards in half and make it harder for victims to make multiple claims. 'Since this law was enacted by the legislature, even before the governor signed it, our firm has been devoting, — I'm not even exaggerating to say — probably about 80-plus percent of its time, energy efforts and resources, into getting these lawsuits filed,' said Emily Malarkey, a partner in the Baltimore firm Bekman, Marder, Hopper, Malarkey & Perlin. In the last six weeks, Malarkey's firm filed 50 lawsuits on behalf of 250 clients, just one firm among many representing potentially thousands of clients. One case came in at 10 p.m. Thursday, from an out-of-state firm that needed local attorneys to assist in filing. 'We're exhausted,' Malarkey said. 'It has been a Herculean effort, that was never our intended plan.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Those numbers are part of what drove lawmakers to pass the bill dramatically limiting a two-year old law that allowed victims who were otherwise barred from suing because of time limits to file civil lawsuits. The 2023 law created a scenario in which state and local governments could be on the hook for billions in potential liabilities. Under the old law, damages were capped at $1.5 million per 'occurrence' of abuse in a lawsuit against a private institution such as a school or church. In cases involving government entities, the cap was $890,000 per occurrence. The new law slashes the caps as of June 1 — to $700,000 for private institutions and $400,000 for public institutions. And the 'per occurrence' language goes away. Lawmakers rushed to address the issue after legislative analysts warned in January that, under the old caps and with the potential of more than one occurrence per claimant, the cost to settle more than 3,100 cases that had been filed at the time could run into the billions. That would be troubling in good economic times, but the January warning came as the state was looking at an existing $3.3 billion structural deficit for fiscal 2026 and a similarly sized one for fiscal 2027. The new law not only has financial consequences for victims. It could also limit the number of future cases, as lawyers consider whether they can afford to take on clients under the new caps. 'After June 1, it's going to be really hard, I think, to find good representation, because not only did the legislature cut the cap, but the legislature cut the attorney fees that can be charged,' Malarkey said. 'It's going to be very difficult for businesses like mine to handle these complex, expensive, difficult cases stemming from decades ago, with dead witnesses and lost documents on a 20% contingency fee. We just can't do it.' Thousands of cases are pending in Maryland courts. Malarkey said the vast majority — cases against the Archdiocese of Baltimore and the Department of Juvenile Services — will likely work their way through Baltimore City Circuit Courts. Prince George's County courts will likely see the bulk of cases against from the Catholic Church's Washington diocese. The rest, including cases against local schools and other institutions, will be heard in counties around the state. The Next Generation Energy Act that takes effect Sunday passed with just as much fanfare and will be felt by virtually every Marylander — but with none of the urgency of the Child Victims Act overhaul. The most immediate change, a rebate on people's electric bills, won't come before July. In fact, the only noticeable change on June 1 is likely to be another increase in utility bills, while the law aimed at reining increases in grinds to life. Senate Bill 937 and House Bill 1035 were part of a three-bill energy package touted by Democratic leaders in response to rising utility bills over the winter that blew up legislators' phone lines and email inboxes with constituent complaints. The bills' backers said the measures included short-, medium- and long-term solutions to complex issue of rising energy costs in Maryland. The first change Marylanders will notice is the 'Legislative Energy Relief Refund,' a credit averaging $80 per household that will be divided between bills next month and in January 2026. But the next round of rate increases is set to kick in after June 1. Baltimore Gas & Electric customers got a break Thursday when the Maryland Public Service Commission ordered the utility to take next month's expected $21 per month increase and spread it over several months, lowering the increase by $10 to $15 for the average household during the summer months. But rates will jump in September — overall, BGE customers will pay the same amount, but it will be spread out more evenly. Customers of other utilities are likely to see increases between $4 and $18 per month, according to a report commissioned by the Maryland Office of People's Counsel. Meanwhile, most of the bill's provisions will unfold farther into the future. The law includes changes at the PSC meant to rein in utility spending, including on new natural gas infrastructure, and encourage the construction of new power sources and energy storage technology — all with the goal of slowing price increases for ratepayers. It calls for the PSC to open a procurement window — in October — for generators of 'dispatchable' energy, which must contribute a certain amount of reliable energy to the grid with lower greenhouse gas emissions than coal or oil, according to the bill. It could include new natural gas, an option that angered environmentalists. The PSC will open another procurement window in January, for battery storage technology. Environmentalists were pleased that the bill removes a renewable energy subsidy from trash incinerators that generate power, long one of their goals. CONTACT US Republican critics said the bill will do little to bolster in-state power generation, and blamed Democrats for driving fossil fuel power plants out of business and pushing costly clean energy policies on utilities. In fact, experts say the rate increases are caused by a combination of factors, from rising energy demand, to policies of regional electric grid operator PJM, to utilities pursuing overzealous improvements to the natural gas system. Another bill in the Democrats' package, which takes effect July 1, prevents local governments from banning large solar panel facilities through zoning. House Bill 1036/Senate Bill 931 raised concerns in farming communities, who worry that productive farmland could be lost to solar panels, but it's not clear they will be able to meet a weekend deadline to petition it to referendum. The final bill, to set up an energy planning office focused on the state's long-term energy picture, was vetoed by Gov. Wes Moore (D), who said that other offices do that already and that it was too costly. At least one new law does nothing — for another 18 months. The Family and Medical Leave Insurance program was supposed to start on July 1, but House Bill 102 defers the start of the program until Jan. 1, 2027. And that's just the date when payroll deductions and employer contributions would start to be collected for the programs, benefits for someone who needed to take time off for a family issue of a health emergency would not start to be paid out until Jan. 1, 2028. It is the third time the program start date has been pushed back since the FAMLI law was approved by lawmakers in 2022. Passage of the bill was a bitter pill for advocates, who said family emergencies can't wait 18 months. Moore administration officials said the delay was unfortunate. But they also said that with the state facing a $3 billion budget deficit at the start of this year, and with continued uncertainty coming out of Washington under the Trump administration, another delay was the only prudent thing to do. The Maryland Values Act, meanwhile, does something, but it's a lot less than its backers had hoped. As drafted, House Bill 1222 would have prohibited '287(g)' agreements, under which local police can essentially act as immigration agents, detaining people on suspicion of immigration violations and holding them for federal agents. A handful of sheriff's departments in the state have entered into 287(g) agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Senators stripped out the 287(g) language from the House bill and the Senate was not budging as the clock ticked down on the session. With literally minutes left in the 2025 General Assembly session, the House relented. The final version of the Maryland Values Act has nothing on 287(g) but does add protections against release of immigrants' personal records and other data the state holds. It also includes language to help 'sensitive locations' — churches, schools, hospitals and the like — respond should federal agents show up. Those locations had been off limits to immigration enforcement under the Biden administration, but that restriction was quickly lifted under the Trump administration. House Bill 782 requires a thorough assessment of guns in the state's public high schools and middle schools, and report on the best way to detect the presence of guns in schools and the best way to report such information to police. The law will take effect just days after the first-degree murder conviction Friday of Jaylen Rushawn Prince, 16, in the shooting death of 15-year-old Warren Curtis Grant in a bathroom at Joppatowne High School on Sept. 6, 2024, according to news reports. The bill, originally sponsored by Del. Vanessa Atterbeary (D-Howard), calls on the Maryland Center for School Safety, a unit within the Maryland Department of Education, to meet with members of every local school system in the state and evaluate the security infrastructure currently in place. The center will also be required to evaluate 'widely accepted' methods that are available but not currently used by school systems, analyze software that can be integrated with security cameras and study the use of metal detectors, even handheld devices, at school entrances. The center will have to present an interim report to legislative leaders as well as to the Senate Education, Energy and the Environment Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee by Dec. 1, 2025. A final report would be due by Dec. 1, 2026. Other bills that become laws June 1 include: Senate Bill 376 will require the Maryland Department of Health to regularly report to the legislature on the progress it has made to reduce a significant backlog of required annual nursing home inspections. Under the new law, the department will need to start providing quarterly reports to lawmakers on the progress of nursing home inspections, and the Office of Health Care Quality will have to report to local jurisdictions every six months on the progress of inspections in their individual counties. Motorists using Interestate 83 in Baltimore will have to watch their speeds. House Bill 913, passed earlier this year, authorizes doubling the number of automated speed-monitoring devices on the city portion of the highway from two to four cameras. For bills that ended up passing both chambers unanimously, lawmakers spent an inordinate amount of floor time — and offered an inordinate number of bad puns — for Senate Bill 544 and House Bill 559, the agritourism porta-potty bills. When the new law takes effect June 1, it will allow certain wineries, farm breweries and farms engaged in 'agritourism' — like pick-your-own fields and corn mazes — to meet the requirement for on-site lavatory facilities by providing portable toilets with soap and water and located at least 25 feet from any wells. Two new state symbols — an official state mineral and a cocktail — join the list of about two dozen that includes official state sports, dogs, cats and dinosaurs, among others. Chromite, a commercially valuable mineral first discovered in Baltimore County in the early 1800s, has become the official state mineral with the enactment of House Bill 411. The effort was a passion project for David Shore, who first testified on the bill nearly a decade ago. Now, at age 18, Shore's effort not only passed the House and Senate but landed on the desk of the governor. And the rising tide for chromite lifted another state symbol effort. In the waning hours of the 2025 session, a bill making the orange crush — a vodka and juice drink invented in Ocean City — the official state cocktail was going nowhere. But as lawmakers were finishing their work, a late amendment in the House added Orange Crush to Senate Bill 764, the Senate's version of the chromite bill. Senators concurred before the final gavel fell, and Maryland got an official state cocktail to go with its official mineral. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Maryland's credit downgrade can be blamed on actions in Washington, not Annapolis
Maryland maintained a AAA bond rating from Fitch and Standard & Poor's, but was downgraded to Aa1 by Moody's. (Maryland Matters file photo) In his coverage of the downgrade of Maryland's credit rating by Moody's from the coveted AAA to AA1, Bryan Sears pointed to Moody's acknowledgement of Maryland's 'wealthy and diverse economy,' solid financial planning and proactive management by officials, including slowing expenditures and raising new funds. But the report also noted that Maryland was particularly vulnerable to 'shifting Federal policies and employment' in comparison to other states with triple-A ratings: Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia. In plain-speak, Maryland's administration was well equipped to handle any organic financial issues arising from budgetary deficits, and/or ambitiously funded programs. But our reliance on federal jobs meant that no one could foresee or plan for such eventualities. Maryland Matters welcomes guest commentary submissions at editor@ We suggest a 750-word limit and reserve the right to edit or reject submissions. We do not accept columns that are endorsements of candidates, and no longer accept submissions from elected officials or political candidates. Opinion pieces must be signed by at least one individual using their real name. We do not accept columns signed by an organization. Commentary writers must include a short bio and a photo for their bylines. Views of writers are their own. Among all the states with a triple-A rating, Maryland's economy is the only one which is dominated by the government sector. Being a small state and adjacent to the nation's capital, Maryland's largest source of income is income tax. Almost one in 10 Maryland workers is a federal employee. The only variable NOT in control of the state administration is the employment of federal workers. It isn't hard to see the connection. Republican delegates and senators who tout Moody's warnings about Maryland's rating prior to this current federal administration taking charge are forgetting that the programs with high price tags, like the Blueprint for Maryland's Future, were hit because of the COVID-19 economy. We barely had time to come up to the surface to take a breath of air before being submerged again by this second Trump administration! The GOP needs to take a hard look at themselves, and their blind obeisance to the walking body of malfeasance they regard as their president. Here is the bottom line: Moody's downgraded Maryland's credit rating because, despite the Moore administration's best efforts, they could not fix the damage done by DOGE and their dismantling of federal government. Maryland, D.C. and Virginia have the maximum number of federal employees – both Maryland and D.C. had their ratings downgraded. Virginia is a much larger state and has other economic avenues to offset the loss of federal jobs, even though it, too, has taken a substantial hit to its economy. Blame, if it is to be assigned, lies with the Trump administration and its hatchet approach to federal infrastructure. Believe me, the damage goes far beyond a credit rating — the United States will be feeling the effects of this sabotage for decades to come. Fitch has since released its ratings on Maryland, and Standard & Poor's followed on Wednesday. Maryland continued to maintain a triple-A ratings with both firms. So let's all take a deep breath, and return to resisting the illegal and unconstitutional actions of this federal administration.
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Gov. Moore should convene the legal ads forum he promised
A worker poses by the presses of the Daily Republic in Fairfield, California, in this 2018 file photo. (Photo by Staff Sgt. Amber Carter/U.S. Air Force) Maryland law mandates that estate beneficiaries pay hundreds of dollars, plus transaction costs, to place legal ads in a local newspaper announcing an estate's opening. In 2024 and 2025, Maryland's legislature introduced bills to revoke that mandate and instead allow such notices to be posted for free on a more publicly accessible government website. Experts knowledgeable about estate legal ads know that virtually no potential beneficiaries and creditors learn about a deceased person via such ads. But the mandate is politically impregnable because it benefits one of Maryland's most politically powerful industries at the expense of the politically weak; that is, monopoly local newspapers receive millions of dollars per year while the average Marylander only pays hundreds of dollars per lifetime. This incentive structure of concentrated industry benefits and diffuse public costs constitutes the classic incentive structure of special interest politics. The problem is compounded by the local newspaper lobby's unique power, as reflected in the politicians' motto: 'Never pick a fight with anyone who buys ink by the barrel.' Maryland Matters welcomes guest commentary submissions at editor@ We suggest a 750-word limit and reserve the right to edit or reject submissions. We do not accept columns that are endorsements of candidates, and no longer accept submissions from elected officials or political candidates. Opinion pieces must be signed by at least one individual using their real name. We do not accept columns signed by an organization. Commentary writers must include a short bio and a photo for their bylines. Views of writers are their own. Today, Maryland mandates some 190 separate statutory legal ad subsidies for the local newspaper industry, of which the estate subsidy is only one. But the industry worries that revoking even one of these subsidies will cause a domino effect, so fights accordingly. The case against the obsolete estate legal ad mandate was so compelling that the 2024 legislation revoking it passed both the Maryland House and Senate unanimously (175-0). (Assisting such support, when the bill was introduced, Maryland's leading newspaper chain was owned by an unpopular, out-of-state hedge fund.) But Gov. Wes Moore then vetoed the legislation, justifying his veto on the basis that the issue needed more study: 'This veto should not be seen as the end of the conversation, and in fact the administration believes we need a broader conversation about public notices rather than a conversation focused solely on estate notices. Our administration looks forward to engaging with … all of the advocates on that topic during the interim,' he wrote. This year the same bill was introduced in the legislature and again passed unanimously (132-0) in the House. But it wasn't allowed even a vote in the Senate's Judiciary Committee, whose chair, as is said in Annapolis, 'placed the bill in his desk.' The chair didn't respond to my written query asking him to explain his opposition. I first got a sense of how dirty newspaper legal ad politics was when decades ago I tried to gather data to study them. I had worked at a D.C. think tank studying media public policy and knew that legal ads were the newspaper industry's largest government subsidy. No scholarly data existed on this subject because other scholars who had tried to study such subsidies had run up against the same brick wall I had; that is, I could find no industry data because national and state newspaper organizations, while aggressively lobbying for such subsidies, had refused to provide authoritative data on them, and politicians were too terrified of the industry's political power to ask how much their subsidies cost the public. So most Maryland legislative sessions some legislation passes that expands legal ad newspaper subsidies without accountability provisions. I was curious: Did the governor fulfill his veto statement's promises? The answer is no. In the year between the end of the 2024 and 2025 legislative sessions, neither the Governor nor his staff participated in, let alone orchestrated, such a public discussion. My sense is that the best hope to eliminate Maryland's obsolete estate legal ad laws would be to shame the governor into acting consistent with his own stated values, as he has promised to support the poor and politically weak, and that's whom estate legal ads most hurt. On the other hand, since the media have negligible incentive to expose this hypocrisy, such hope appears quixotic. Moreover, the governor's politically astute aides have undoubtedly counseled him not to risk the newspaper industry's wrath, given its power to shape his and his opponents' public image. Conversely, recall that the governor won a Bronze Star for bravery. Accordingly, the governor should convene his promised public forum to discuss the merits of newspaper legal ads. Until then, he should instruct his staff to stop lobbying to kill legislation that only reduces but not expands legal ad subsidies. (The largest new newspaper subsidy last session reduced newspapers' legal ad costs). If the governor's policy is only to call for public discussion when reducing but not increasing newspaper industry subsidies, that double standard should be called out.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Feds approve Indiana ban on soda, candy from SNAP purchases
With new federal approval, Indiana will ban the purchase of candy and soda using taxpayer-funded food assistance starting Jan. 1, 2026. (Bryan P. Sears/Maryland Matters) Hoosiers will no longer be allowed to purchase candy and soda using taxpayer-funded food assistance, making Indiana the first state to receive a federal waiver for the restriction. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Brooke Rollins signed off on Indiana's request this week, according to a Friday news release from Gov. Mike Braun's office. The Republican governor signed an executive order in April as part of his 'Make Indiana Healthy Again' plan to limit the use of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. The new policy will take effect Jan. 1, 2026, per a spokesperson for the governor. 'More taxpayer-funded SNAP dollars are spent on sugary drinks and candy than on fruits and vegetables,' Braun said in a statement. 'Indiana is proud to lead the way in the Make America Healthy Again agenda by making this common-sense move to return SNAP to its intended purpose: nutrition.' RFK Jr., Dr. Oz kick off 'Make Indiana Healthy Again' initiative with Gov. Mike Braun Braun said he requested the federal waiver to allow Indiana to impose its own restrictions on the program. He pointed to USDA data showing that soda is the most purchased item with SNAP benefits. Nationwide, SNAP recipients spend more on sugary drinks, desserts and candy than on fruits and vegetables combined. Research additionally shows children in SNAP households consume 43% more sugary beverages than children in similar-income households not enrolled in the program. Indiana was one of the first states to apply for the waiver and is part of a broader push by the Braun administration to combat diet-related health problems and improve food quality in low-income Hoosier communities. The announcement initially came during a rollout event for the initiative, where U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. praised Indiana's approach. 'I urge every governor across America to follow your lead,' Kennedy said during the April 15 visit in Indianapolis. He called for other reforms, too, like banning certain food dyes and additives, expanding farm-to-school programs, implementing fitness testing in schools, and increasing SNAP transparency. Related executive orders recently signed by Braun include those to add work requirements for more SNAP recipients; commissioning studies about food safety and diet-related illness; and various proposals to generally limit 'waste, fraud and abuse' in the state's Medicaid program. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
