Local unions have found themselves at the center of a budget battle that emerged Friday.

Several organizations recently reached a tentative labor agreement with Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich and his administration that includes general wage increases of 2.5% to 3% and other potential pay raises and benefit improvements.

But the County Council has to approve their contract. And their agreement appears to be in jeopardy.

“It is not the right nor the privilege of the County Council to ignore our agreement,” said Lisa Blackwell-Brown, secretary-treasurer of UFCW Local 1994 MCGEO, which represents Montgomery County employees outside the school system and the police and fire departments.

“I’m tired of asking. We are demanding that the County Council fund not [only] our contract but all labor agreements that were on the table,” she said.

Council President Natali Fani-González and Councilman Will Jawando are each pushing an alternative to the spending plan Elrich introduced in March. Neither wants to raise property taxes, and both want high earners to contribute more of their income.

But they differ sharply over raises and benefits for county employees. While Jawando has allied himself with the public sector unions, including several who have endorsed his campaign for county executive, Fani-González’s proposal has pitted her against these groups.

The county’s public school unions issued a joint statement Friday saying the council president’s proposal would result in the county “reneging on its commitments.”

Fani-González has proposed an across-the-board 2% raise for county employees, which she said would save more than $40 million at a time when local revenue growth is declining and the county is staring down a looming structural deficit. The savings, she said, would prevent the need for a property tax increase.

“How can I tell somebody who got laid off — illegally — that they’re gonna have a tax increase?” she said, referencing the thousands of federal workers who live in the county and have lost their jobs in the last year.

She called on the labor unions to work with her to find a solution for balancing the budget while avoiding a tax increase for middle- and low-income families.

“If they have a better solution to accomplish a balanced budget without affecting the most vulnerable, then I’m all ears,” she said.

It appears Jawando will be the most vocal supporter of the unions as budget negotiations continue.

During a news conference with union leaders Friday, Jawando said the council president’s spending plan sends the wrong message to county employees and that “collective bargaining is not a courtesy that extends when times are easy.”

“It’s actually more important when times are hard,” he said.

He said council members will comb the budget line by line in the coming weeks and have difficult conversations.

“But,” he said, “the contracts that workers bargained for in good faith are not on the table, full stop, for me.”

Preventing future tragedy

Nearly four years after sisters Lindsay, 19, and Jillian Wiener, 21, died in a house fire at the Hamptons rental home where they were vacationing with their family, state lawmakers passed a bill requiring short-term rentals to have fire prevention and detection equipment and to have annual inspections.

Lindsay and Jillian’s mother, Montgomery County resident Alisa Wiener, has made it her mission to advocate for such requirements. She testified in favor of the bill in March, saying, “I have a responsibility to make sure that the tragedy that happened to my family does not happen to anyone else.”

In her testimony, Wiener said she and her family had trusted the Vrbo home they rented was safe and that the safety checklist the company provided was accurate.

She and her husband awoke at 3:30 a.m. to the sound of shattering glass. The kitchen wall was on fire. And they didn’t hear any alarms.

“Just silence,” she said.

They couldn’t reach their three children sleeping upstairs. Their son jumped to safety from a second-floor window, but their daughters didn’t make it out.

She has pushed for lawmakers to require that short-term rentals have functioning smoke detectors and annual inspections and that homeowners upload proof of safety inspections to rental platforms.

Wiener returned to Annapolis on Tuesday for Gov. Wes Moore’s first bill-signing event following the end of the 90-day legislative session.

The governor highlighted the bill during his prepared remarks, and he said the Wiener family “chose to turn the worst moment of their lives into a fight for other families who they may never even meet or ever even know.

“But they will benefit from your work,” he said.

Council advances Unmask ICE bill

The County Council’s committee on public safety on Friday unanimously passed a bill prohibiting federal, state and local law enforcement officers from wearing masks or face coverings while on duty, with some exceptions.

The measure had been the subject of a recent dispute among council members. Jawando introduced the bill in January, but the council tabled it while the state legislature considered a similar measure during its 90-day session.

He tried to get his colleagues to fast-track the bill, and the move sparked a fraught debate that featured accusations of gaslighting and political gamesmanship.

Before approving the bill, council committee members amended it in response to similar legislation the legislature passed.

“I am grateful to the Public Safety Committee for their thoughtful and productive consideration of the Unmask ICE Act, and thankful the full Council will soon have an opportunity to consider and vote on this bill,” Jawando said in a statement.