Finance
2025 End of Session Wrap-Up: Finance
The segments below provide a brief overview of MACo’s work on finance policy in the 2025 General Assembly.
Maryland’s 447th legislative session convened amidst a substantial concern over the State’s fiscal situation, with weakened revenues and cost increases for many services at every level of government. Despite the budgetary limitations, many policy issues received a full debate, with many resolutions arising from the 90-day annual process. MACo’s Legislative Committee guided the association’s positions on hundreds of bills, yielding many productive compromises and gains spanning counties’ uniquely broad portfolio.
Follow these links for more coverage on our Conduit Street blog and Legislative Database.
MACo supported HB 498/SB 427 – Economic Development – Delivering Economic Competitiveness and Advancing Development Efforts (DECADE) Act with amendments. This bill proposed a comprehensive restructuring of Maryland’s economic development programs to centralize funding and policy decisions and shift priorities toward targeted industries. Counties requested amendments to preserve local flexibility, protect proven incentive programs, maintain meaningful input in funding decisions, and ensure workforce development strategies align with local and regional priorities. This bill did not pass in the 2025 session.
Bill Information | MACo Coverage
MACo supported HB 17/SB 340 – Internet Gaming – Authorization and Implementation with amendments. This bill would have authorized the State Lottery and Gaming Control Commission (SLGCC) to license video lottery operators to conduct and operate internet gaming in Maryland. Counties requested amendments to include measures that protect existing revenue streams and maintain the effectiveness of local impact grants. This bill did not pass in the 2025 session.
Bill Information | MACo Coverage
MACo supported HB 637 – Transportation – Highway User Revenues Capital Grants – Calculation. This bill would have fully restored Highway User Revenues (HUR) to local governments and finally corrected a long-standing imbalance in Maryland’s transportation funding. This bill did not pass in the 2025 session.
Bill Information | MACo Coverage
MACo submitted a letter of information on SB 935 – Transportation – Regional Authorities – Established. This bill proposed Regional Transportation Authorities and new transportation-related surcharges to support transportation infrastructure. MACo submitted a letter of information urging the Committee to weigh key policy considerations. This bill did not pass in the 2025 session.
Bill Information | MACo Coverage
MACo submitted a letter of information on HB 1370/SB 881 – Transportation – Regional Transportation Authorities. This bill proposed Regional Transportation Authorities and new transportation-related surcharges. This bill did not pass in the 2025 session.
Bill Information | MACo Coverage
MACo supported HB 846 – Transportation Access and Revenue Act with amendments to address the state’s chronic transportation funding shortfall and enable counties to invest in safe, equitable, and sustainable transportation projects that reduce congestion, enhance communities, and strengthen the economy. This bill did not pass in the 2025 session.
Bill Information | MACo Coverage
For more finance-related legislation tracked by MACo during the 2025 legislative session.
Finance
Low-income Chinese girl aces gaokao, inspires live-streamers offering help
A girl from a disadvantaged rural family in central China topped this year’s gaokao, attracting numerous live-streamers eager to finance her education, which she declined.
The home of 18-year-old secondary school graduate Han Yaping in a Henan province village was recently bustling with live-streamers.
This attention came after Han achieved an impressive score of 699 out of 750 in the gaokao, China’s national college entrance exam.
She has received offers from China’s two leading universities, Tsinghua University and Peking University.
Han’s accomplishment is particularly remarkable given her family’s impoverished circumstances.
Her mother suffers from ankylosing spondylitis, an inflammatory arthritis affecting the spine, preventing her from working. Her father, who earns a living through farming and odd jobs, serves as the family’s sole provider. Han also has a younger sister.
Finance
UK financial regulator publishes landmark AI review
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published a landmark review on Monday that proposes recommendations to regulate the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the financial decisions made by consumers.
The review, titled the Mills Review, anticipates that both consumers and firms will start delegating “more financial decision-making to AI systems,” including for agreements, initiating transactions, and executing decisions “within agreed parameters.” One of the key findings of the review outlined that while AI can help bridge advice gaps and “support growth,” there remain risks “associated with fraud, cyber security, and consumer harm.” Conducting the review, Sheldon Mills highlighted that “AI can also amplify risks: bias, discrimination, exclusion, opaque decision-making (particularly when multiple AI models interact), misleading or hallucinatory advice and erosion of consumer trust.”
The review stated that presently, one in five adults in the UK are “already open to AI making decisions for them,” particularly when decisions feel “complex or high stakes.” It found that roughly 26 percent of the population “trust general-purpose tools such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini for financial advice” with little awareness that such platforms provide no “formal routes to recourse” or protections.
Overall, the Mills Review identified four areas that it anticipates will be impacted by AI in the financial sector: “the transformation of firms,” “new consumer journeys,” “a reshaped competition landscape,” and “amplified financial crime and cyber risk.” The FCA projected the shift in how consumers and firms consult AI to take place by 2030.
The Mills Review put forth seven “priority” recommendations to be considered by the FCA Board. It recommended that any transitions to autonomous AI models be monitored and that regulatory frameworks and perimeters be adapted and secured. The review called for the strengthening of “system-wide coordination and oversight,” the scaling up of the FCA’s AI Lab to enable it to support AI models and innovation for agentic finance, and an “AI-enabled agentic supervisory model” to be built and adopted. Finally, it recommended that a trusted “public-interest AI-enabled financial capability service” be developed.
The FCA announced, in the press release, that it will launch an AI “good and poor practice publication” in late 2026.
Finance
Fayette County Public Schools Board of Education approves audit contract, new finance director position
LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) – The Fayette County Public Schools Board of Education approved a one-year audit contract capped at $131,750 plus $225 per hour during a virtual meeting Monday, along with a new finance director job description.
The contract is with Mauldin & Jenkins Certified Public Accountants, an Atlanta-based firm, and covers the 2025-26 fiscal year and the restatement of the 2024-25 fiscal year and ancillary services through FY 2029-2030. The work is set to be completed by Nov. 15.
The board approved the contract in a 5-0 vote.
Audit contract details
Interim Chief Financial Officer Kyna Koch said the cost is already accounted for in the district’s budget.
“And is actually less than we expected given our current situation — we were thrilled with the bid,” Koch said.
Koch said she believes this is Mauldin & Jenkins’ first school district audit in Kentucky, but that the firm works with school districts of more than 100,000 students throughout the Southeast.
“Quite frankly when I spoke to the folks at KDE they were thrilled because we’re running kind of short of auditors who want to do school district audits — so all around I think this was a win-win for everyone,” Koch said.
New finance director position
The board also approved a new job description for the position of Director of Finance. Acting Superintendent Dr. Bill Bradford said the title will replace two associate director positions.
“Which will not only save the school district money but it’s also going to streamline our work and align internal controls to make room for a more efficient unit,” Bradford said.
Koch said the position will be posted as soon as possible following the board’s approval.
Closed session
The board went into closed session for more than an hour to discuss pending investigations that could lead to employee discipline. When the board returned, it took no action and adjourned the meeting.
Copyright 2026 WKYT. All rights reserved.
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