FREDERICK ROTARY CLUB 425

services through the provision of additional revenue and alternative
revenue resources. This year Frederick County's budget leaped 17
percent to an all-time record $11. 9 million, yet the county property
taxes remained constant at a rate that ranks fourth lowest among
Maryland's twenty-four subdivisions. Fiscal reform provided Frederick
County with over $2, 165, 000 in additional direct State aid. Without
fiscal reform your county government would have had to raise prop-
erty taxes sixty-five cents (65$) per $100 assessed valuation to provide
an equivalent sum. With fiscal reform, Frederick County can combine
maximum services with minimum local taxation to become a prime
attraction for commercial, industrial and residential development.

Three blue ribbon committees have been established to attack
other obstacles to economic development; to eliminate illogical im-
pediments; to assure that Maryland's statutes and policies are con-
ducive to increased investment.

The newly augmented Hughes Committee is preparing recommen-
dations for the 1968 General Assembly of essential reforms in business
and industrial taxation. As a community cognizant of the debilitating
effects of onerous business taxes, Frederick citizens can especially ap-
preciate the sensitive relationship between a favorable commercial
tax climate and economic development.

A second commission has been formed to evaluate the Side's exist-
ing interest and usury statutes. The development of a clear and con-
sistent statutory code on credit practices is imperative to protect both
consumer and commercial interests.

Most important to Frederick County is the nine-member committee
appointed to study State highway financing and the redistribution of
gasoline tax revenues. Here, where your interests are ably represented
by Delegate William Houck, new means and measures must be de-
termined to extricate Maryland's highway programs from their critical
financial straits. I recognize that a comprehensive highway network
is essential to economic development and I share your frustrations
with the present pace of road construction. The problems in this
area that we have inherited from the previous administration are
overwhelming; the obstacles that we have encountered as a result of
the national inflationary spiral are monumental. But we must face
them.

I am looking to this committee and to the State Roads Commission
to find new solutions; to designate new alternatives and to develop
new measures which will revitalize Maryland's highway programs. I