WILLIAM DONALD SCHAEFER, Governor

May 27, 1988

The Honorable R. Clayton Mitchell, Jr.
Speaker of the House of Delegates
State House
Annapolis, Maryland 21401

Dear Mr. Speaker:

In accordance with Article II, Section 17 of the Maryland
Constitution, I have today vetoed House Bill 300.

House Bill 300 would establish in the Department of State
Planning a repository and clearinghouse for information on
federal and State grants, loans, and other financial and
technical assistance. Under the legislation, the Department
would be statutorily mandated to adopt regulations that require
all State agencies to submit this information to the Department,
and to publish grant application requirements in the Maryland
Register at least "60 days before the grant deadline." The
Department would also be required to annually publish a catalog
or catalogs of State assistance programs.

With the cooperation of each State agency, the Department of
State Planning already publishes a catalog of state assistance
programs. In addition, grant announcements and application
procedures are already routinely published in the Maryland
Register. While I do have concerns about the process becoming
too bureaucratized as mandated by HB 300, my objection to this
legislation is based on the 60 day advance publication
requirement for financial assistance.

Three State agencies have raised objections to the advance
publication requirement. I understand that there have been a
number of federal programs where the State has not been given 60
days to award grants or where the State was notified that a grant.
had to be fully encumbered within a relatively short period. A
recent example of this involved the Department of Housing and
Community Development and the Permanent Housing Program for the
Handicapped Homeless, which received materials in the last week
of February for a March 31, 1988 application deadline. The
rigidity of the 60 day provision could have prevented Maryland
from benefiting from its share of this $15 million federal
program, certainly an undesirable result.

In other cases, the advance publication requirement could
interfere with programs administered by the State that were
specifically designed for emergency responses. Among these are
programs administered by the Community Development
Administration, the Emergency Shelter Grant Program, the Small
Cities Improvement Program, and the Small Cities Community
Development Block Grant - Imminent Threat and Emergency Grants
Program.

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