COMPTROLLER MISDIRECTED $21.4 MILLION: Maryland’s chief tax collector said Wednesday that his office accidentally misdirected $21.4 million of local income tax payments for years, a mistake that affects nearly every municipality in the state. Comptroller Peter Franchot told a panel of state lawmakers that the scope of misdirected tax payments was broader than he previously thought, Erin Cox is reporting in the Sun. State auditors reported in September that the comptroller’s office had sent $8.7 million to the wrong municipalities in Montgomery County.
-
An independent audit has found that nearly all of Maryland’s taxing districts were affected by the state sending local income-tax revenue to the wrong jurisdictions since 2010, expanding the scope of a problem that county and city officials discovered last year, Josh Hicks reports for the Post.
-
Bryan Sears of the Daily Record reports that letters and calls will go out over the next two days alerting 86 municipalities that they will receive part of $12.7 million that was misallocated to other subdivisions dating back to 2010. Other subdivisions, 83 in all, will receive similar notifications that they received money they shouldn’t have and will be put on a 10-year payment plan.
BLACK DRIVERS SEARCHED AT HIGHER RATES: Black motorists in Maryland are stopped and searched by police at higher rates than their white counterparts, despite being less likely in many jurisdictions to be found with illicit drugs or other contraband, according to statewide traffic stop data reported by Kevin Rector in the Sun.