Spring may have sprung in the mid-Atlantic, but those contracting and doing business with the State of Maryland don’t feel like they’re receiving anything close to a flowery reception from the Maryland General Assembly this April. On the heels of a winter of discontent in the Old Line State, where those in the regulated community had to scramble to adjust to a new pay-to-play regime that involved unwieldy online filing obligations, modified contract valuation standards and contribution reporting requirements, and enhanced record retention and certification obligations, another new set of legislative changes has been adopted that will further alter the compliance playing field. You know what they say – when it rains it pours.
This new round of amendments to Maryland’s pay-to-play framework, contained in House Bill 769, was passed by the state legislature earlier this month and has been sent to new Governor Larry Hogan for his signature. If the bill is signed into law, as anticipated, Maryland state contractors will have until June 1, 2015 to “unlearn” some of what they just learned about Maryland’s comprehensive pay-to-play overhaul on January 1st of this year. Given that we’re currently less than four months into the new framework, at least the regulated community can say it hasn’t had time to get comfortable with the “suddenly-old” regime.
Under the changes proposed by House Bill 769, entities with more than $200,000 in total Maryland contracts as of the end of 2014 will be required to submit semi-annual pay-to-play contribution disclosure reports with the State Board of Elections starting in August of this year. This is the case even if such contractors receive no new government contracts from the state during 2015 – a change from the pay-to-play regime that went into effect on January 1, 2015, which exempted companies with no new 2015 contracts from having to file disclosures.
In addition to closing this potentially-unintended loophole in the recently-enacted pay-to-play regime, the legislative amendments in House Bill 769 also attempt to somewhat ease the existing reporting burden for disclosing contractors. Specifically, the new changes will excuse companies without reportable political contributions (by either the entity or its covered representatives) from having to openly disclose the minute details of all of their existing state contracts. Moving forward, contractors without such reportable contributions will need only indicate the specific government agencies with which they do business, but will no longer need to report the value, start date and termination date of all their state contracts. This will undoubtedly be seen as a small ray of sunshine for those in the reporting community.
Before those doing business with the State of Maryland go getting all giddy, however, they should also take note of how House Bill 769 will alter the traditional pay-to-play reporting schedule for state contractors. As noted above, the next semiannual disclosure filing for contractors will be due in August of this year. The filing deadline for that report, however, has been moved from the customary date of August 5th to a new date of August 31st. The August disclosure will be required to cover reportable contractor activities between February 1, 2015 and July 31, 2015.
Following the completion of that submission, filing parties will be required to submit another pay-to-play report by November 30, 2015 covering reportable activities between August 1st and October 31st. Subsequent to that November 30th filing, all government contractors will face a semi-annual filing schedule for 2016 and beyond. Such reports will be due on May 31st and November 30th of each year, and will cover reportable activities during the preceding six month periods.
Keeping the above amendments in mind, the good news for the regulated community is that these changes will be the only new legislative wrinkles in Maryland pay-to-play law for at least the next 8 months. The bad news is that regulators in Annapolis will have ample time between now and next January (when the General Assembly goes back into session) to weigh in on the changes and unleash their own brand of administrative storm clouds. No matter when the next storm hits, however, you can count on your friendly legal meteorologists here at Pay-to-Play Law Blog to keep you up to date
