By Adam Pagnucco.
Last year, the county council unanimously approved the JOBS (Jobs, Opportunities & Business Support) initiative, a new $20 million program to provide incentives for businesses. The press release stated:
On Tuesday, May 7, the Montgomery County Council approved a $20 million appropriation for the County’s Economic Development Fund to spur economic development, create high-paying jobs and invest in businesses that have historically lacked access to capital. The New J.O.B.S. (Jobs, Opportunities and Business Support) Initiative will create three separate, complementary economic investments: a $10 million Job Creation Fund, a $7 million Innovation Fund, and a $3 million Founders Equity Fund.
The three funds had different purposes. The $10 million Job Creation Fund was intended to “incentivize growing Montgomery County companies to create and fill high-paying jobs by providing employers with $10,000 for new jobs created offering salaries of $100,000 or more.” The $7 million Innovation Fund was going to “award up to $100,000 to eligible companies developing any innovative technology, design or process.” And the $3 million Founders Equity Fund “will offer grants of up to $100,000 to early and growth-stage entrepreneurs and small businesses with owners who have been disproportionately disadvantaged by a lack of access to capital. This fund will help reduce barriers to entry for historically under resourced businesses. Eligibility will be determined by using Montgomery Planning’s Community Equity Index tool. A marketing strategy will also be developed to focus on Black, Indigenous and People of Color communities.”
So how has this $20 million initiative fared in the 18 months since it was created? Last week, County Executive Marc Elrich reported to the council: “As of October 31, 2025, Finance has disbursed $400,000 to awardees of the Founders Fund and $3,345,500 to awardees of the Technology Innovation Fund. Finance continues to implement a revision to the Job Creation Fund’s hiring timelines and anticipates initial payments to occur by December 2025.” That means less than 20 percent of the money has been spent. If the awards continue to proceed at this rate, it will take several years to fully disburse them.
That last point requires clarification. Programs of this kind need design time and this one was not accepting applications until late last year. Also, county officials should be careful in reviewing applications to screen out unworthy ones and prevent fraud. Finally, a pipeline of spending has been created, which is an improvement from February. The executive’s latest report (which can be downloaded below) claims that the Job Creation Fund’s “total disbursement if all anticipated eligible jobs are created, held for minimum period, and verified” would now be $3,538,000 and that an additional $6.9 million has been awarded to applicants from the Founders and Technology Innovation Funds. If all of those awards hold up, roughly half the money has at least been allocated even if most of it has not been disbursed.
Here is what this pace of awards shows: it takes government a long time to get money out the door. We saw that during the pandemic, when the county struggled to send COVID relief money to recipients and was hounded by angry council members for more than a year. Now, this $20 million in jobs subsidies will wind up getting trickled out over years in a county that had a $113 billion gross domestic product in 2023 (according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis) and 460,853 payroll jobs last year (according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). It’s not peanuts, folks – it’s peanut molecules.
While the $20 million is microscopic compared to the county’s economy, it’s much more meaningful in the context of the county’s budget. When the initiative was under consideration, the MCPS unions called it “trickle down” money and asked that it be sent to schools instead. Whether they’re right or wrong, their perspective can certainly be understood considering the folks they represent.
And here is what this money has to go up against: some of the highest income taxes on the East Coast, by far the highest development impact taxes in Maryland, an extreme rate of energy taxes that dwarfs the rest of the region and rent control, which has devastated multi-family housing production. That’s just for starters. It’s preposterous to throw up barriers to wealth and job creation like these and then spend $20 million of tax money to try to make up for it, but that’s where we are now as a county.
If county leaders really want to jumpstart the economy, they should make their tax and regulatory policies regionally competitive, concentrate spending in investments like transportation and education, and restrain spending growth in other areas to pay for that rather than resort to continuous tax increases. This kind of major change is harder to do than passing occasional small grants, but that’s what it will take to compete effectively with our neighbors.
Elrich’s latest report to the council on the jobs initiative can be downloaded below.
County Executive Memorandum – J.O.B.S Initiative Progress Report – October 2025