Hough pledges to lower taxes, slow spending as Frederick County executive

May 17—Editor's note: The Frederick News-Post is profiling candidates for various public offices in Frederick County leading up to the July 19 primary elections.

Maryland state Sen. Michael Hough said that as county executive, he wants to lower taxes, slow government spending and alleviate traffic on major highways through the county.

Hough, who has represented Frederick and Carroll counties in the state Senate since 2015, said he would return surplus revenue to taxpayers through tax rebates or by lowering taxes, one of a number of changes he would bring to the office.

"I think the county needs a course correction," he said. "It doesn't need a radical change, but there [are] some things happening in the county that I disagree with."

Hough was a state delegate representing Frederick and Washington counties from 2011 to 2015, when he joined the state Senate. Since 2017, he has worked as chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Alex Mooney, a Republican in West Virginia, who formerly represented Frederick County as a state senator.

Hough is running unopposed for the Republican nomination for county executive in the November general election.

Three candidates are seeking the Democratic nomination in the July 19 primary: County Councilwoman Jessica Fitzwater, an elementary school music teacher; Councilman Kai Hagen, the former executive director of the nonprofit Envision Frederick County; and Daryl Boffman, a retired business executive, founder of Acela Technologies Inc. and former county Board of Education member.

Asked about his decision to run for county executive, Hough said, "I looked at who was running, to be blunt."

Hough said government's "paramount responsibility" is to fund public safety. He said Gardner allocated enough money for the Frederick County Sheriff's Office in her proposed budget for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1, but he wants to add policing to the impact fees people pay to support services like public schools.

Roughly 20% of Gardner's proposed $792 million budget is for public safety.

The proposed budget is 10% larger than this year's. Under Hough, the county's budget would continue to grow, he said, since the county's population is rising.

But Hough said he wants spending to increase at a slower rate than it has under Gardner.

"You can't keep growing, in my opinion, at 10% a year," he said. "That's just too much."

The county's budget increased by nearly 8% in 2021 and by roughly 4% in 2020.

Hough said the county government should spend less, so it can lower taxes. He said the county should return more surplus property tax revenue and income tax revenue to taxpayers, too.

The county has used unexpectedly high revenues from the last two years to advance large projects like constructing new schools, but the three Republicans on the seven-member County Council have repeatedly said the county should use surplus funds to grant more rebates or lower taxes.

Hough said he would lower the county's taxes by freezing tax revenue. To do this, Hough would need to lower the county's tax rate of $1.06 per $100 of assessed value to the constant-yield rate of $1.02 per $100 of assessed value.

Doing so for next year's budget would decrease county revenue by $13 million, according to the county's staff.

Hough would implement a hiring freeze in county government to slow spending, he said, with one exception. He would add an inspector general to audit the county's spending and the budgets of governing bodies the county funds.

Hough said he wants to preserve more farmland in the county.

He would direct the county's recordation tax revenue toward agricultural preservation, rather than to programs like affordable housing, he said. The County Council passed a bill from Gardner in 2019 to direct a percentage of recordation tax revenue into a fund for affordable housing.

Hough said he would partner with the next governor to move along an existing state project to expand Interstate 270 to relieve traffic heading toward the Capital Region. He said he would push for the Frederick County portion to be completed as soon as possible.

"We need somebody here to be a voice for all the drivers in Frederick County who are stuck on [I-270]," Hough said. "I think that if you elect somebody that is an opponent of it, it makes it much harder for this to happen."

Hagen was on a regional transportation board that voted to strike the project to widen I-270 and the Capital Beltway from an environmental study it needed to move forward. Gardner replaced Hagen on the board after he voted without consulting his fellow County Council members.

Hough grew up in Montgomery Village in Montgomery County. He joined the Air Force after high school and served four years as a Minuteman missile technician. His parents moved from Montgomery Village to Point of Rocks while he was in the Air Force, so he moved to Frederick County when his four years of service ended, he said.

Hough lives in Brunswick with his wife and children.

"I don't want to do the politics, I want to do the policy stuff. I just want to get stuff done," he said of his bid for county executive. "I did 12 years of the legislature, and quite frankly, I got sick of the politics."

"I look at this as a job where you can get stuff done," he said.

Follow Jack Hogan on Twitter: @jckhogan