The next piece of the Baltimore County pension grab – stage managed by the current members of the council – has fallen into place.

Last month, the county’s Personnel and Salary Advisory Board issued its recommendation that the salaries of members of the council be increased from $69,000 to $140,000 and the salary of the chair be increased from $77,000 to $150,000.

Under state law, the recommendation was due on December 20, and the county council has until the general election in November to act upon it.

If the recommendation is adopted by the council, the increases will take effect as of the next term of office, which begins on December 7, 2026.

Adoption of the recommendation by the council would consummate a scheme by incumbent lawmakers to boost their pensions, a scheme that began in 2024 with Bills 40-24 and 47-24 and was documented in real time by The Brew.

The scheme was crafted to allow current members to use the dramatic increases in council salaries recommended by the board for purposes of calculating their pensions – even if they leave office before the salary increases take effect.

The pension windfalls would be eye popping.

For example, 78-year-old Republican Wade Kach, the sponsor of Bill 40-24, is not seeking re-election and, therefore, will retire before his salary is increased from $69,000 to $140,000.

Nevertheless, if the recommended salary increases are adopted, Kach’s pension for 12 years of service will jump 103% from $41,400 to $84,000.

Republican Councilman Todd Crandell, 56, just announced he won’t seek re-election. If the salary increases pass, his pension for 12 years of service will increase 103% from $41,400 to $84,000.

Approval of the salary increases will also create golden parachutes for Democratic Councilmen Izzy Patoka, 68, and Julian Jones, 62, if their candidacies for county executive are unsuccessful and they are forced to retire from the council at the end of this term.

Patoka’s pension for eight years of service, including one year as council chair, would nearly double from $30,800 to $60,000.

Jones’ pension for 12 years of service, including five years as council chair, would increase 95% from $46,200 to $90,000.

This is how it went down.

Bill 40-24

Bill 40-24, which took effect in July 2024, changed the manner of calculating the pensions of council members who retire on or after December 1, 2025.

Upon leaving the council, a member who has at least 16 years of service, or who is at least 55 years old and has at least four years of service, qualifies for a pension.

Under prior law, that pension was equal to one-twentieth of the member’s “average final compensation” multiplied by the number of years of the member’s service.

As changed by Bill 40-24, the pension of a retired member will be recalculated each time the pay of active council members is increased, with the new salary for active members used instead of the retiree’s final average compensation to calculate the amount of the retiree’s pension.

The key to the scheme was the provision in the bill applying the change in pension calculation to members who retire on or after December 1, 2025, which prevented former members who already have retired from benefiting from the change.

However, by not deferring the change until after the beginning of the next term on December 7, 2026, current members made sure that the change applied to them in the event that they decide or are forced to leave office at the end of the current term.

In other words, even if a current member retires before the new salaries take effect on December 7, 2026, the new salary schedule will be used to calculate that member’s pension.

Bill 40-24 would greatly enhance pension benefits for all current members of the council who retire in the future.

But it singles out the incumbents who leave at the end of this term for a particularly lucrative windfall.

Bill 47-24

It was 47-24 that made the scheme so potentially lucrative.

Introduced by Patoka, the bill placed a charter amendment on the ballot for approval by the voters increasing the size of the council from seven to nine members.

The amendment also provided that “membership on the council shall be considered a full-time position for the purpose of determining compensation.”

Why did Patoka include both provisions in the same amendment?

For one thing, it meant that voters could not vote to increase the size of the council without also voting to add the language about full-time compensation.

Voters approved the amendment (“Question A”) in the November 2024 ballot.

Before the amendment, there was nothing in the charter referring to the part-time or full-time status of a council member.

Members routinely hold full-time jobs in addition to their council duties. The Personnel and Salary Advisory Board based its salary recommendations on its own assessment of the demands of the position, which generally has been considered to be a part-time political office.

Approval of “Question A” took that discretion away from the board, and the recommended salary increases are the result.

Below the Radar

Patoka introduced Bill 47-24 on June 3, 2024, the same day that the council passed Kach’s Bill 40-24.

Had the order of the bills been reversed, with Bill 47-24 considered first, county residents and the media may have caught on to the fact that, if the charter amendment proposed by Bill 47-24 resulted in dramatic salary increases for future council members, Bill 40-24 would produce a pension windfall for current members of the council who leave office at the end of this term.

I have no idea whether Kach and Patoka discussed the substance and sequence of their bills with each other or with other members of the council. But it’s hard to believe that the windfall for incumbents was a coincidence.

What transpired here can best be described as a lawful con job. An unfortunate combination of greed and an abject lack of transparency.

There also was a bit of cleverness involved.

The Maryland Constitution prohibits the compensation of a council member from being increased “during his term of office.” The law is less clear on increasing compensation deferred until after a council member leaves office, i.e., a pension.

Bill 40-24 allows incumbent council members who leave office at the end of 2026 to do indirectly what they are barred from doing directly: Receive the benefit of a major salary increase that by law they cannot apply to themselves.

The Outcome

The combined effect of bills 40-24 and 47-24 was to put six incumbent members of the council in the position of being able to retire at the end of this year at pensions that far exceed the pensions that they earned during their time in office in accordance with the terms and conditions of their pension plan.

The impact of the proposed salary increases on the pensions of Kach, Patoka, Jones and Crandell in light of Bill 40-24 was described above.

The pension of Council Chair Mike Ertel, 59, for four years of service, including two as council chair, would increase from $14,860 to $30,000. (Ertel was the only council member to vote against Bill 40-24.)

The pension of Councilman David Marks, 52, for 16 years of service would increase from $48,300 to $98,000.

At age 42 and with only four years of service, Councilman Pat Young is the only member not immediately eligible for a pension if he leaves office at the end of the current term.

Integrity Check

What transpired here can best be described as a lawful con job. An unfortunate combination of greed and an abject lack of transparency.

I believe there would have been a fair amount of pushback from county residents had someone on the council – or now-retired County Auditor Lauren Smelkinson – explained that the outcome would include doubling the pensions of council members based on a dramatic increase in council salaries that they did not receive.

The solution does not lie in simply reducing the recommended salaries.

The solution is to effectively repeal Bill 40-24 by changing the law back to where it was before it was enacted.

For example, if the council cuts the proposed new salary for a council member from, say, $140,000 to $120,000, it will mean that instead of the pensions of Kach and Crandell increasing from $41,400 to $84,000 when they retire at the end of this term, they would “only” increase to $72,000. That’s still $3,000 more than their final salaries as council members.

The solution is to effectively repeal Bill 40-24 by changing the law back to where it was before it was enacted.

There’s little left to say about Kach, who cemented his legacy by introducing Bill 40-24 and is drifting toward the end of a long career in politics. (Kach already draws two pensions – one from Baltimore County Schools, where he served as a teacher and auditor, and another from the state for his 40 years in the House of Delegates.)

On the other hand, what happens with the pay and pension increases will be an integrity check for the council members running for re-election – and, especially, for Patoka, Jones and Young, who are running for county executive in the June 23 Democratic Party primary.

In the coming months, voters will find out whether their representatives view political office as public service or as an opportunity to provide retirement benefits for themselves that most county residents can only dream about.

• David A. Plymyer retired as Anne Arundel County Attorney after 31 years in the county law office. He can be reached at dplymyer@comcast.net and Twitter @dplymyer.