Preservation Maryland worked tirelessly this session to secure important budget language that will quantify the need for preservation funding across the state.
The budget language, which is contained in the 2016 Joint Chairman’s Report, requires that the “Maryland Department of Planning work with the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and preservation advocates to identify the need and demand for preservation, survey, and museum (operating and capital) grant funding and future plans to address these statewide needs in a report to be submitted by September 1, 2016.”
Preservation Maryland Executive Director, Nicholas Redding, explained, I’ve crisscrossed the state and listened to what our colleagues and partners need to accomplish their work – and a lot of that comes down to funding. This budget language is the result of those discussions and a first step towards restoring the grant programs our partners so desperately require.
Preservation organizations, museums, archaeologists and community development groups using preservation as a tool should be on the lookout for more information about opportunities to explain your funding needs to the authors of the forthcoming report.
The report is due by September 1, 2016 and will be broadly distributed by Preservation Maryland in advance of the 2017 session of the Maryland General Assembly.
Preservation Maryland sincerely appreciates the support of the staff and legislators of the House Appropriations Committee and Senate Budget and Taxation Committee which adopted this language. In particular, Delegate Brooke Lierman (District 46 – Baltimore City) deserves the preservation community’s gratitude for her support of this report and preservation funding.