Finding Childcare in Maryland is Hard. Finding the Right Childcare is Even Harder.

Khushboo Rathore, Capital News Service • July 16, 2024


When Stephanie Jovine searched for childcare for her nearly 4-year-old daughter LuzMarie in Prince George’s County in 2015, she found two options, both of them bad. Jovine couldn’t afford the first one, and the second denied the young girl snacks and then sheets for sleeping.

 

“I was so upset, you know, it was so hard to trust anyone,” said Jovine, a teacher in the District of Columbia Public Schools at the time.

 

After six months of searching, Jovine found a grandmother who ran a small before-and-after care service, LiLi’s Child Care Center, in Temple Hills. The times the program was open aligned perfectly with Jovine's needs.

 

“She’s a godsend, for real,” said Jovine, who's now 33.

 

Jovine’s arduous search for childcare is not unique — and it would not even be her last search. Interviews with several Maryland families showed that while finding childcare is hard, finding a facility that fits a family’s needs and budget is even harder.

 

Maryland offers a rating system to help parents select the right childcare facility, but providers say the rating system is difficult to navigate. Most parents interviewed by the Local News Network said they never looked at the state rating system.

 

Similarly, the state offers a generous scholarship program to help pay for childcare, but providers complain they often have to wait months for the state to pay for childcare for those scholarship recipients. Parents like Jovine struggle with the scholarship program, too.

 

The complications of finding childcare in Maryland often leave families waiting for a place for their child, and that can lead to trouble, said Doug Lent, communications director for Maryland Family Network, which helps parents find childcare and helps providers manage their businesses. 

 

“When you're on that waiting list, that's when you're more likely to be tempted to rely on unlicensed care, unregulated care, and get into a situation that's maybe not safe or maybe not high quality,” Lent said.

 

The ratings dilemma

 

Linda Garey woke up at 6am on a springtime Saturday at her home in Dundalk to create a communication board for the autistic children she cares for daily in her home. Eleven hours later, she was still working on the project. She isn’t paid for the time she spends preparing her classroom.

 

Garey is a level-3 provider with Maryland EXCELS, the childcare quality rating system in the state that offers a top rating of 5 to the state’s top child care centers. Garey created a 65-page handbook outlining her teaching philosophy. She also assists other programs with their handbooks.

 

“I've typed probably about 20 to 30 handbooks and turned them in for other people, right? And they're all level 5,” she said.

 

EXCELS — which stands for “Excellence Counts in Early Learning and School Age Care” — is an optional program for licensed child care providers. It offers them training and guidance and, if they qualify for it, a rating that parents can refer to when choosing a place to care for their child.

 

The Maryland EXCELS rating is based on five categories: licensing, staff qualifications, accreditation, developmentally appropriate practices, and administrative policies. The highest overall rating a facility can get is the lowest rating it gets in any of those five categories.

 

And even though Garey has more than 20 years of experience, her lack of national accreditation as a childcare provider means she can’t go higher than level 3. 

 

Garey is working on getting her child development associate credential and becoming accredited — but she won’t be submitting that information to Maryland EXCELS. She said whenever she submits new documents and information to the Maryland State Department of Education, it goes to waste.

 

“'I turned in some information about 20 times and it was denied,” she said.

 

State officials insist they are trying to help. Jena Smith, the director of quality improvement initiatives at the state’s Division of Early Childhood, said quality assurance specialists work with each childcare facility to improve its quality rating. 

 

The Maryland State Department of Education also publishes a provider toolkit that outlines the documents necessary to rise up the ratings ladder, Smith said. The requirements for each level build on the last, she said.

 

“It's a scaffold, and so that's really how our quality assurance specialists work with our programs,” Smith said. “They help them assess where they currently are and where they want to go.”

 

Since January 2020, the number of level-5 providers in Maryland has increased by 9.6%, according to state statistics retrieved by the Local News Network. However, 15 of the state’s 24 jurisdictions have lost level-5 providers, and providers overall appear to have mixed feelings about the EXCELS program.

 

Asked to rate the EXCELS program’s effectiveness on a 1-to-5 scale, with 1 being least effective and 5 being most effective, the 256 childcare providers who replied to a Local News Network survey gave the program an average rating of 3.

 

“I answered 3 because part of the program, I feel, has been extremely helpful, such as writing policies for guidance (on) nutrition and such,” Cheryl Thomsen, a childcare provider in Salisbury, wrote in her survey response. “I did obtain accreditation but found it was very difficult to actually follow all the requirements properly on a daily basis.”

 

A difficult search

 

Jovine moved from Prince George’s County to Waldorf, in Charles County, in 2020 and left teaching. Two years later, she returned to the District of Columbia Public Schools system while pregnant with her second child — only to discover searching for childcare was still difficult and time-consuming.

 

“I was looking and looking and looking for childcare,” she said.

 

Jovine experienced exactly what other young mothers have experienced in recent years. She went on a frantic search for childcare without referring to the state’s EXCELS ratings.

 

Priya Mahfooz’s son Zakir was born in May 2019. She sent Zakir to a childcare facility near the family home in Clarksburg, in Montgomery County, a few months later. But that operation shut down at the start of the covid-19 pandemic, never to reopen. 

 

Desperate for childcare, Mahfooz and a friend banded together to hire the teacher who ran that closed facility to look after their children. Each family paid the teacher $425 a week.

 

In the summer of 2021, Mahfooz decided to send Zakir back to a childcare facility. During her search, Mahfooz said, she didn’t rely on Maryland EXCELS or the state inspection reports.

 

“When you're searching, it's really just whatever you're being fed in your feeds,” Mahfooz said. “You're thinking about price, location, [online] ratings.”

 

Mahfooz found a childcare slot for Zakir later that summer in Germantown and then enrolled him in Green Valley Montessori School in September 2021.

 

Meanwhile, Javiera King, an administrator at the University of Maryland, had to hire a nanny to take care of her young daughter, Layla, while the family searched for a slot in a childcare facility.

 

While pregnant, “I had to put myself on a waitlist already because most day cares have a waitlist a year out,” she said.

 

King’s nanny gave her two weeks’ notice in December 2023. That meant King had to quickly piece together a schedule where family members took turns caring for her daughter, who was 11 months old at the time. The family then found a childcare facility that had a part-time slot for Layla, meaning the family’s piecemeal plan for caring for the young girl would continue. 

 

Finally, in February, Layla’s part-time slot at that facility became full-time.

 

“We were really lucky with how everything played out for us,” King said.

 

Jovine wasn’t so lucky. When she was five months pregnant with her second child, she called 12 childcare facilities. All of them had a waiting list of a year or more for infants.

 

 Her daughter Lily was born at the end of February 2023, and Jovine finished the school year on maternity leave. She had to go back to work in August, but the earliest availability at most nearby childcare facilities was in October.

 

“There was one spot that had an availability. I wasn't too satisfied with it,” Jovine said.

 

There were few toys and learning tools. The outdoor play equipment was dirty and the facility had no curriculum for promoting development in infants, Jovine said.

 

She found another option on a billboard. Jovine called that facility and when she found they had a spot, she took it. She only took three days off work to care for Lily.

 

The facility Jovine sent Lily to after a 10-month search is enrolled in the EXCELS program but is not yet rated.

 

Asked if she referred to the EXCELS system during her search, Jovine said she didn’t even know about the state rating system at the time.

 

Jovine has seen her daughter develop significantly at the day care. Lily is happy to go and a little reluctant to leave in the evenings, Jovine said.

 

“This is how I know she's in good hands. She likes it there,” she said.

 

A scholarship program

 

In addition to offering ratings of the state’s childcare providers, Maryland expanded its child care scholarship program in 2022, making it easier to afford childcare, said Heather Harding, coordinator at the Federalsburg Judy Center in Caroline County. 

 

But providers said the scholarship program doesn’t work as well in practice as it does in theory.

 

The eligibility requirements for the scholarship program allow middle class families to apply. Any family of two making less than $61,222 per year is eligible; for a family of four, the limit is $104,438. 

 

A new fast-track program, launched on July 1, 2023, aims to reduce the wait time for parents to receive approval for a scholarship. Three days after applying, eligible families can get 60 days of childcare paid for while their long-term aid application is processed. Scholarship values each year can range from $9,000 to $25,000 per child.

 

Lent, of the Maryland Family Network, said the new fast-track has vastly improved the scholarship program. Previously, parents would be placed on a waiting list to receive help with their childcare expenses, he said. 

 

But other requirements can make the system a catch-22, Harding said. Parents are required to be enrolled in school or working to be eligible for the scholarship, she said. But many of them can’t do either unless they have childcare guaranteed.

 

“Even if they find it, then they can't pay for it till they get the scholarship,” Harding said.

 

These scholarships can only be used in facilities that are enrolled in the EXCELS program. After parents receive a voucher from the state, they present it to the provider. The provider then has to send paperwork to the state in order to be paid.

 

Garey, the childcare provider from Dundalk, said this is one of the most frustrating parts about the process. Multiple times, she filed paperwork and had to wait three months to be paid. At one point, the state owed her $15,000 in scholarship pay. This happened after the state moved to an advance-payment system that was supposed to provide providers with income more quickly.

 

“It's this delay after delay after delay,” Garey said.

 

She finds ways to deal with the months-late payments because she refuses to make the parents pay or to drop families from her list of clients.

 

“One little girl is nonverbal. She sang and pointed to every single letter of the alphabet,” Garey said. “I did that. So why in the world would I drop that family?”

 

Other providers also complain about late scholarship payments. Christine Morris, the director of Trinity Lutheran Christian School and Early Learning Center in Joppa, in Harford County, said this spring that the state owed her $40,000 in scholarship payments. And Shantel Rouzer, who runs Happy Feet Enrichment Childcare Center in Baltimore City, said she turned away students on the scholarship program because she knows the state’s reimbursements will come so late.

 

“It’s not the families’ fault, but (Maryland State Department of Education officials) don't hear us!!!?? And providers are tired!!!” Rouzer wrote in response to a survey from the Local News Network.

 

Solving her own problem

 

Parents like Jovine don’t always know about the scholarship program. When she found out about the program in February, months after Lily, her youngest daughter, started day care, Jovine applied. A day later, the program’s new fast-track program started temporarily covering her childcare costs for two months.

 

“It took a huge load, And it's amazing to have that option,” she said.

 

Before that, Jovine was paying $1,360 per month for childcare for Lily. On top of that, she had to provide snacks, milk, lunch and other resources to the center.

 

But four days before Jovine’s temporary aid expired, she hadn’t gotten a final decision from the state. Jovine didn’t receive a response until June. By then, she was already paying out of pocket. 

 

She’ll have to continue to do so because the state decided she was earning too much money to qualify. Noting her application listed extra money from her old job at D.C. Public Schools that doesn’t reflect what she’s making now, she has reapplied.

 

Jovine and her longtime partner, Abdul Dopson, now need childcare more than ever. Their third child, Mia, was born on June 14. 

 

Knowing infant spots are difficult to find, Jovine decided to leave her teaching job — and do her own small part to alleviate Maryland’s childcare shortage. 

 

“I got licensed to start a day care myself: a home day care,” she said. “The need is that prevalent, you know, I might as well try to open up a day care myself and see what happens.”

 

Jovine’s fledgling childcare facility, Elite Kidz Clubhouse, opens in August — but it’s already overtaken her home’s living room and dining room. She’s spent more than $2,500 on cots, desks, developmentally appropriate toys, and other necessities.

 

A large, colorful tree painted on the wall of the facility showcases the skills Jovine wants her students to get out of their day-to-day activities. Jovine said she wants her facility to work its way through the EXCELS system and eventually qualify as a preschool under the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, the state’s education reform plan.

 

“Why not start this beautiful generation how it should, educating them and giving them what they need to be successful little children?” she said.

 

 

Capital News Service is a student-powered news organization run by the University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism. For 26 years, they have provided deeply reported, award-winning coverage of issues of import to Marylanders.

 

Local News Network reporter Laura Shaughnessy contributed to this report.


Common Sense for the Eastern Shore

Mayor Randy Taylor Moves to Dismantle Salisbury’s Housing First Program, Undermining Proven Strategy for Ending Homelessness

By CSES Staff • October 24, 2025
 Sparking alarm among housing advocates, social workers, and residents, Salisbury Mayor Randy Taylor has announced plans to gut Salisbury’s nationally recognized Housing First program, signaling a break from years of bipartisan progress on homelessness. Created in 2017 under then-Mayor Jacob Day, the initiative was designed around a simple but powerful principle: that stable, permanent housing must come first before residents can address problems with employment, health, or recovery. The program was designed to provide supportive housing for Salisbury’s most vulnerable residents — a model backed by decades of national data showing it reduces homelessness, saves taxpayer dollars, and lowers strain on emergency services. But under Taylor’s leadership, that vision appears to be ending. In a letter to residents, the City of Salisbury announced that the Housing First program will be shut down in 2027, in effect dismantling one of the city’s long-term programs to prevent homelessness. Taylor says he plans to “rebrand” the program as a temporary “gateway to supportive housing,” shifting focus away from permanent stability and toward short-term turnover. “We’re trying to help more people with the same amount of dollars,” Taylor said. Critics call that reasoning deeply flawed, and dangerous. Former Mayor Jacob Day, who helped launch the initiative, says that Housing First was always intended to be permanent supportive housing, not a revolving door. National studies show that when cities replace permanent housing programs with short-term placements, people end up right back on the streets, and that costs taxpayers more in emergency medical care, policing, and crisis intervention. Local advocates warn that Taylor’s move will undo years of progress. “This isn’t just a policy shift, it’s a step backward,” one social service worker said. “Housing First works because it’s humane and cost-effective. This administration is turning it into a revolving door to nowhere.” Even some community partners who agree the program needs better oversight say that Taylor is missing the point. Anthony Dickerson, Executive Director of Salisbury’s Christian Shelter, said the city should be reforming and strengthening its approach, not abandoning its foundation. Under Taylor’s proposal, participants could be limited to one or two years in housing before being pushed out, whether or not they’re ready. Advocates fear this change could push vulnerable residents back into instability, undoing the progress the city was once praised for. While Taylor touts his plan as a way to “help more people,” critics say it reflects a troubling pattern in his administration: cutting programs that work. For years, Salisbury’s Housing First initiative has symbolized compassion and evidence-based leadership and has stood as a rare example of a small city tackling homelessness with dignity and results. Now, as Taylor moves to end it, residents and advocates are asking a simple question: Why would a mayor tear down one of Salisbury’s most successful programs for helping people rebuild their lives?

John Roberts Is 20

By John Christie • October 24, 2025
On the first Monday of October, the Supreme Court began a new term, Term 2025 as it is officially called. The day also marked John Roberts’ 20 years as Chief Justice of what history will clearly record as the Roberts Court. Twenty years is a long time but at this point, Roberts is only the fourth longest serving Chief Justice in our history. John Marshall, the fourth and longest, served for 34 years, 152 days (1801–35). Roger Brooke Taney, served for 28 years, 198 days (1836–64). Melville Fuller, served 21 years, 269 days (1888 to 1910). John Roberts was originally nominated by George W. Bush to fill the seat held by the retiring Sandra Day O’Connor but, upon the unexpected death of William Rehnquist, Bush instead nominated Roberts to serve as Chief Justice. His nomination was greeted by enthusiasm and high hopes in many quarters. He was young, articulate, personable, and highly qualified, having had an impressive academic record, experience in the Reagan administration and the private bar, and service on the federal D.C. Court of Appeals for two years. His “balls and strikes” comment at his confirmation hearing struck many as suggesting judicial independence. He sounded as well very much like an institutionalist, having said at an early interview that “it would be good to have a commitment on the part of the Court to act as a Court.” Whatever else might be said 20 years later about the tenure of John Roberts as Chief Judge, the Supreme Court is no doubt much less popular and much more divisive today than it was on September 29, 2005, when he was sworn in as the 17th Chief Justice by Justice John Paul Stevens, then the Court’s most senior associate justice, and witnessed by his sponsor, George W. Bush. Gallup’s polling data shows popular support for the Court now at the lowest levels since they started measuring it. In July 2025, a Gallup poll found that, for the first time in the past quarter-century, fewer than 40% of Americans approved of the Supreme Court’s performance. According to Gallup, one major reason that approval of the Supreme Court has been lower is that its ratings have become increasingly split along party lines — the current 65-point gap in Republican (79%) and Democratic (14%) approval of the court is the largest ever. The legal scholar Rogers Smith wrote in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science in June, “Roberts’s tenure as Chief Justice has led to the opposite of what he has said he seeks to achieve. The American public now respects the Court less than ever and sees it as more political than ever.” These results signify more than simply a popularity poll because a Court without broad public support is a Court that will not have the same public respect upon which their most important decisions have historically depended. And, whatever the reasons for this development, it has happened on John Roberts’s watch. There is no better example of the current divisiveness on the Court than the remarkable string of “emergency” rulings on the Court’s so-called shadow docket since January 20. The extent of ideological and partisan differences has been sharp and extreme. The conservative majority’s votes have frequently been unexplained, leaving lower court judges to have to puzzle the decision’s meaning and leaving the public to suspect partisan influences. And the results of these shadow docket rulings have had enormous, sometimes catastrophic, consequences: Removing noncitizens to countries to which they had no ties or faced inhumane conditions Disqualifying transgender service members Firing probationary federal workers and independent agency heads Ending entire governmental departments and agencies without congressional approval Allowing the impounding of foreign aid funds appropriated by Congress Releasing reams of personal data to the Department of Government Efficiency Allowing immigration raids in California based on racial and ethnic profiling John Roberts has written many Supreme Court opinions in his 20 years as Chief Justice. At the 20-year mark, the most important, to the nation and to his legacy, will likely be his opinion in the Trump immunity case, which changed the balance of power among the branches of government, tipping heavily in the direction of presidential power. Trump v. United States (2024). In her dissent from his majority opinion in that case, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, warned about the consequences of such a broad expansion of presidential power. “The Court effectively creates a law-free zone around the president,” upsetting the status quo that had existed since the nation’s founding and giving blanket permission for wrongdoing. “Let the president violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law.” Roberts claimed in his majority opinion that the “tone of chilling doom” in Sotomayor’s dissent was “wholly disproportionate” to what the ruling meant. However, Sotomayor’s words have proved prescient: the breadth of power that Trump and his administration have asserted in the months since he was sworn in for his second term has made plain how boundlessly they now interpret the reach of the presidency in the wake of the Roberts opinion. Despite the early “balls and strikes” comment, the assessment of John Roberts’ long term judicial record suggests something different as seen by several distinguished legal commentators from significantly different perspectives. As summarized by Lincoln Caplan, a senior research scholar at Yale Law School, in a new retrospective article on Robert’s 20-year tenure, “From his arrival on the Court until now, his leadership, votes, and opinions have mainly helped move the law and the nation far to the right. An analysis prepared by the political scientists Lee Epstein, Andrew Martin, and Kevin Quinn found that in major cases, the Roberts Court’s record is the most conservative of any Supreme Court in roughly a century.” “What Trump Means for John Roberts's Legacy,” Harvard Magazine , October 8, 2025. Steve Vladeck, Georgetown Law Center professor and a regularly incisive Court commentator, characterized the 20-year Roberts’ Court as follows: “The ensuing 20 years has featured a Court deciding quite a lot more than necessary — inserting itself into hot-button social issues earlier than necessary (if it was necessary at all); moving an array of previously settled statutory and constitutional understandings sharply to the right; and, over the past decade especially, running roughshod over all kinds of procedural norms that previously served to moderate many of the justices’ more extreme impulses.” “The Roberts Court Turns Twenty,” One First , September 29, 2025. In another remarkable new article by a widely respected conservative originalist, similar concerns about the present Court have very recently been expressed. Caleb Nelson, who teaches at the University of Virginia and is a former law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, has written that the text of the Constitution and the historical evidence surrounding it in fact grant Congress broad authority to shape the executive branch, including by putting limits on the president’s power to fire people. “Must Administrative Officers Serve at the President’s Pleasure?” Democracy Project, NYU LAW , September 29, 2025. When the First Congress confronted similar ambiguities in the meaning of the Constitution, asserts Nelson, “more than one member warned against interpreting the Constitution in the expectation that all presidents would have the sterling character of George Washington.” Nelson continues, “The current Supreme Court may likewise see itself as interpreting the Constitution for the ages, and perhaps some of the Justices take comfort in the idea that future presidents will not all have the character of Donald Trump. But the future is not guaranteed; a president bent on vengeful, destructive, and lawless behavior can do lasting damage to our norms and institutions.” John Christie was for many years a senior partner in a large Washington, D.C. law firm. He specialized in anti-trust litigation and developed a keen interest in the U.S. Supreme Court about which he lectures and writes. 

Rep. Harris Earns An “A” on GOP “Trump Score”

By Jan Plotczyk • October 24, 2025
If you’ve ever wondered just how slavishly loyal Rep. Andrew P. Harris (R-MD01) is to President Donald Trump, you can now put a number on it! Just consult the Republican National Platform Ratings. When you do, you will find that Rep. Harris has a very high overall score: 90.38%. He is the most aligned with the Trump/GOP platform among Maryland’s congressional representatives. No surprise there. Among all U.S. senators and representatives (using 2024 votes), Harris is 43rd most aligned. One might expect more from the chair of the right-wing Freedom Caucus. Harris scores at 90.38% aligned overall. His ratings by topic range from 82.98% to 100%. The topics refer to chapters in the platform: Defeat inflation and quickly bring down all prices. Seal the border and stop the migrant invasion. Build the greatest economy in history. Bring back the American Dream and make it affordable again for families, young people, and everyone. Protect American workers and farmers from unfair trade. Protect our Constitution and seniors. Cultivate great K-12 schools leading to great jobs and great lives for young people. Bring common sense to our government and renew the pillars of American civilization. Government of, by, and for the people. Return to peace through strength. Here are all Harris’s scores:

Several Thousand Rally Across the Eastern Shore in Protest of Trump Administration Policies

By CSES Staff • October 24, 2025
Several thousand people turned out on Oct. 18 in communities across the Eastern Shore to participate in the national “No Kings Day” protests, joining thousands of simultaneous events nationwide opposing the policies of President Trump’s administration. Demonstrations were held in Salisbury, Ocean City, Easton, Cambridge, Chestertown, and Centreville. These gatherings were part of a broader coalition effort that organizers say reflects frustration with the administration’s direction and a demand for renewed accountability and democracy. Participants across the Shore held signs and expressed concerns about immigration enforcement, executive power, and transparency in government. In jurisdictions that lean Republican and supported Trump in 2024, the rallies underscore a growing discrepancy between voting patterns and present activism. For example, in Queen Anne’s County — where the Trump vote was strong — residents joined the demonstration with statements of surprise at the turnout. Despite the scale of national mobilization, local organizers emphasized that the protest is rooted in community values of fairness, participation, and civic voice. One organizer on the Shore described the event as a reminder that “when people choose to show up, they remind their communities what democracy looks like.” Authorities reported no major disruptions during the Shore events, and police in some areas confirmed the rallies proceeded peacefully. For many in the region, the demonstrations mark an opening moment for more active civic engagement on the Shore, one that observers say could reshape local politics in counties historically seen as less partisan.

Maryland Democrats Launch Statewide Candidate Recruitment Initiative

By CSES Staff • October 24, 2025
The Maryland Democratic Party has launched a statewide initiative, Contest Every Seat, that aims to recruit candidates to run for public office across all levels of government ahead of the 2026 elections. Party officials say the goal is to ensure voters in every district across Maryland have a choice on the ballot. The program will include outreach, training sessions, and support for prospective candidates considering campaigns for local, county, and state positions. “The effort is designed to encourage Marylanders who want to make change in their communities to step up and take action,” the party announced. Interested individuals can visit mddems.org/run for information about the application process and training opportunities. The Maryland Democratic Party said similar initiatives in past election cycles helped increase candidate recruitment in local and rural areas, including the Eastern Shore.

Maryland Faces Economic Strain as Federal Shutdown Continues

By CSES Staff • October 24, 2025
With the federal government now shut down for more than three weeks, Maryland is losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue daily, a reflection of the state’s deep economic ties to the federal workforce. According to the Maryland Comptroller, approximately 230,000 Marylanders work directly for the federal government, with an additional 200,000 employed by federal contractors. The state’s economy, long intertwined with the operations of nearby federal agencies, is feeling the strain as paychecks stall and agencies close. Comptroller Brooke Lierman estimates Maryland is losing about $700,000 in state revenue each day — roughly one percent of the state’s average daily revenue of $100 million. “That is a small piece of our overall state budget,” Lierman said, “but as long as all our federal workers are paid what they are owed, that money will get back to us.” Federal employees generally receive back pay after shutdowns end, but recent statements from President Trump suggesting that furloughed workers may not be repaid have created uncertainty. More than 150 members of Congress, including Maryland’s entire Democratic delegation, signed a letter this week urging the Trump administration to guarantee back pay under the 2019 Government Employee Fair Treatment Act, which requires compensation for federal employees affected by a shutdown, and which Trump himself signed into law. Rep. Sarah Elfreth (D-MD03) said Congress is prepared to defend those protections. “Denying that pay would be illegal, and we will use every tool we have — both in Congress and in the courts — to ensure federal employees are made whole,” she said. During the 35-day federal shutdown in 2019, Maryland lost more than $13 million daily in economic activity and over $550,000 daily in tax revenue, according to state data. This latest shutdown comes amid broader federal workforce reductions under the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, which announced layoffs earlier this year. A federal judge temporarily halted further cuts on Oct. 15 following a legal challenge. The effects extend beyond government offices. Universities such as Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland Baltimore Washington Medical Center report disruptions to federally funded research projects and grant cycles. Gov. Wes Moore has directed state agencies to provide emergency support to furloughed federal workers, including housing and utility assistance. On Oct. 17, Moore announced the Maryland Transit Administration will offer free MARC and commuter bus rides to federal employees who show valid government ID. “This is what Maryland does in times of crisis, we band together and help each other out,” Moore said. “But no state can fill the gap created by the federal government. The longer this shutdown lasts, the more pain we will feel.” There is no indication of when negotiations in Washington to end the shutdown will resume.
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