In Part 1 of this series we listed the infrastructure the local, state, and county governments are giving away for free for the University of Maryland’s Institute for Health Computing (UM-IHC) in North Bethesda—all sited at the coveted Metro North Bethesda station. How wise is this move?
The UM-IHC is funded by MoCo, state, and federal taxpayers through MPowering the State. Reading its 2023 annual report, we learn that MPower is comprised of opaque organizations (Center for Maryland Advanced Ventures? Maryland Momentum Fund?) that seem to be taxpayer funded, and it passes those funds on to equally opaque organizations (Small Business Development Center? TEDCO? Baltimore Development Corporation?). In the entire 2023 annual report, we see phrases such as “increased revenue” and “startups formed,” but I couldn’t find the phrase “net income.” What’s worse, the actual businesses associated with MPower include IRAZÚ Bio, Isoprene Pharmaceuticals, Protaryx, GEn1E Lifesciences, E-connect, and RenuBioMed, none of which provide annual reports. It’s not clear at all that anything associated with MPower is generating any net income. If that’s true, then MPower, IM-IHC, and all these incubator companies look awfully like favored courtiers elbowing each other for disbursements from the the sovereign’s treasury.
This brings us to the Annapolis casino. It was just last year that Governor Moore, facing a budget deficit, did the right thing and cut spending. We can debate the nature of those cuts, but cut he did. How do we know it won’t happen with UMD? Or the UM-IHC? If that facility gets shuttered or downsized, what will happen to the infrastructure we gave away to them for free?
From a risk-management perspective, it might be wiser to bring in employers who do not rely 100% on the largess of a state or federal agency.
Marc Elrich has demonstrated an aversion to dealing with large private companies or federal contractors, and that posture has served the progressive demographic very well. It has also placed most of MoCo’s eggs in one basket, while places like Northern Virginia, North Carolina, Texas, and Florida flourish with a diversified tax base. With a North Bethesda site primed for development, now would be a good time to reconsider adding ever more reliance on a capricious government agency.
