March Madness

I know: given the name of this blog, of course I would take the opportunity to write about the upcoming basketball tournament, right? Well, that is only part of the reason for today’s theme. There are many forms of madness taking place this March and I just wanted to note a few.

This week begins the public discussion of Montgomery County’s budget as we attempt to determine the appropriate balance of services to be provided with revenues required. It won’t be easy, and yet there are many challenges that exist for many during this month.

The General Assembly in Annapolis is in its final thirty days and the same economic challenges confronting us in the County are clearly in play throughout our State and so the final push is on. The elementary and middle school students in our state are all busily preparing for the Maryland State Assessments. We are all working on filing our taxes in April and hoping that rebate that we might be eligible for in May will be more than what we will owe in April. A number of our region’s student athletes are indeed in the midst of the trademarked March Madness – Coppin State, Mt. St. Mary’s, American University, Georgetown and George Mason on the men’s side of the ledger and we know Coppin State has also qualified for the women’s side and we’ll know the rest later this week. Finally, as the economy continues to struggle, many of us are working hard at just getting by.

The point is that the County Council will be working hard during the next couple of months to formulate the best balanced budget we can for the residents of our County and that will be important and time consuming, but there are many other important issues in each of our lives and we need to keep the right perspective.