The Department of Budget and Management's Municipal Technical Assistance Program (MTAP) will be hosting a webinar on Water Infrastructure Funding in ARPA and IIJA on December 7, 2023 at 1:00 p.m. in partnership with the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) and the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Region 3 WaterTA Program at the University of Maryland (UMD) Environmental Finance Center.

The Department of Budget and Management's Municipal Technical Assistance Program (MTAP) will be hosting a webinar on Water Infrastructure Funding in ARPA and IIJA on December 7, 2023 at 1:00 p.m. in partnership with the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) and the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Region 3 WaterTA Program at the University of Maryland (UMD) Environmental Finance Center. This webinar will include presentations from representatives from MDE and the EPA WaterTA Program at UMD on applying for water, sewer, and stormwater infrastructure funding and relevant technical assistance.

Nearly every Maryland municipality received State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) as part of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) in 2021. Roughly a year from now every municipal recipient will need to have obligated those funds or risk having to return that funding to the U.S. Treasury.

A recent report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) shows that nearly 50% of local governments had not obligated SLFRF funds as of March 31, 2023. The Maryland Municipal League cannot stress enough the urgency to obligate and spend these funds, especially with the need to pass FY2025 budgets by June 30, 2024. 

The State of Maryland Department of Budget and Management’s Municipal Technical Assistance Program (MTAP) has unveiled a new federal fund mapping service. Maryland municipalities can submit infrastructure projects or priorities to the fund mapping service through the Project Intake Form and receive tailored information on relevant Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) programs. If your municipality has additional questions, or would like to learn more, please contact the MTAP team at [email protected].

If you attended the Maryland Municipal League Excellence in Leadership Fall Conference earlier this month and forgot to download PowerPoints and other content, those resources remain available to all conference participants on the MML member app. 

In addition, for a limited time, all MML members may access the following workshop presentations at MDCommUnity, the League's members-only platform:

The deadline for submitting workshop proposals for the Maryland Municipal League Summer Conference has been extended to October 10, 2023. Proposals can be submitted via the Workshop Proposal Form .

MML’s Conference Planning Committee will begin reviewing workshop proposals for the 2024 Summer Conference beginning October 15 and is focused on generating a program that covers the diverse array of opportunities and challenges facing the state’s municipal leaders. If you have questions or need additional information, please contact Stacie Spragins or Tom Reynolds.

The Maryland Municipal Technical Assistance Program (MTAP) has announced a new webinar: Blending ARPA CLFRF & IIJA and the new ARPA CLFRF Interim Final Rule to take place on September 13, 2023 from 12:00-1:00pm EST. This webinar will provide an overview of:

• Methods available to leverage Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (CLFRF) to successfully pursue Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) opportunities. 
• A re-introduction to the IIJA. 
• The 2023 ARPA CLFRF Interim Final Rule (IFR), including new expenditure categories, and the limited impact of the new IFR for municipalities who designated their entire award under the standard allowance for revenue loss.

For 14 years now, MML has partnered with TechnologyNet, a Utah-based company providing “real time,” web-based compensation data to public sector subscribers. TechNet currently serves more than 1,000 local governments in in Utah, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Missouri, Virginia and here in Maryland and will be delivering a webinar on Thursday, August 31 demonstrating system capabilities for municipalities interested in learning more. The TechNet system includes:

• Reporting, sharing and comparing of wages and salaries for fulltime, part-time, temporary and seasonal positions
• Reporting, sharing and comparing of benefit practices, including health, dental, life, disability, retirement, supplemental retirement and all other employer paid benefits
• Reporting, sharing and comparing of current and best practices impacting compensation including paid leave, holidays, and dozens of allowances & practices.
• The ability to select which governments you want to compare against with unlimited report generation, 24/7.
• Easy updating methods to keep information current.
• Data monitoring features and automatically notifies users when data is over a year old.

The cost to participate is $40-80 per year for most Maryland municipalities and allows for multiple logins and passwords for shared access with staff members.