Proposed Cuts to Land Preservation

Maryland’s General Assembly must approve a balanced budget by the time the session ends in April. The Department of Legislative Services (DLS) has proposed changes to Governor Moore’s proposed budget that include eliminating funding for land preservation for four years.

Program Open Space (POS) is funded by a 0.5% property transfer tax collected when a person buys a home or land. POS pays for the acquisition of open space for state and local parks and natural resource areas. The transfer tax also funds land preservation programs like Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation (MALPF) and Rural Legacy.

Land preservation protects our resources, including:

• drinking water
• forests that help clean the air we breathe
• habitat
• for flora and fauna
• farms that provide food and jobs

Community groups are working with the land preservation community in Maryland, including land trusts statewide, to tell our elected officials that cutting land preservation funds entirely for four years will be the death knell of programs that have successfully protected hundreds of thousands of acres of land in Maryland. Preservation programs take time to develop and cannot be restarted quickly. Cutting funding for land preservation opens up land for developers to purchase, and once land has been developed, it’s gone.

Let your State elected officials know that cutting land preservation funding is unacceptable. Find your legislators contact information here.
Click on “Lookup” and enter your address for a complete listing of your representatives.

Please send your elected representatives an email NOW to let them know you oppose cutting funding for land preservation. Urge Maryland’s legislators to prioritize Maryland’s land preservation efforts as highly as you do. Urge them to look elsewhere for funding.