Steve Burns
WMAL.com

ROCKVILLE – (WMAL) After a veto earlier this year by County Executive Ike Leggett, Montgomery County Councilmembers are set to take another vote today looking to become the first suburban jurisdiction in the country to implement a $15 per hour minimum wage.

While all councilmembers agree on raising the minimum wage, the council has remained split on how quickly it should happen. Leggett had suggested moving implementation back by two years, from 2020 to 2022 for most businesses, but a slim majority of the council is continuing to push for the original timeline.

“It basically forces too many people who are at the low end of the wage scale to wait too long,” Councilmember Marc Elrich told WMAL. “We’re all cognizant that you just can’t do it immediately, even if you thought you ought to do it immediately.”

However, Elrich indicated he is open to compromise to avoid the same fate as last time – a veto from Leggett, and councilmembers going back to the drawing board.

“Their bill is a two-year difference than ours. I don’t think that’s an earth-shattering difference in terms of whether you can handle it or not,” he said. “I think we’re going to come up with something that everyone can find some peace with.”

Council President Roger Berliner, who favors the two-year delay, told reporters Monday he is also looking to find common ground.

“We could have another 5-4 vote, and another veto, and in my judgment, that just brings us back to where we are today,” Berliner said. “I am working hard to see if we can’t find common ground that would advance this issue but do so in a way that does the least amount of harm to those that we are concerned about, which is our small business community in particular.”

Small businesses, defined as 50 or fewer employees, would receive an additional two years to implement the new wage under both plans, either by 2022 or 2024.

Montgomery County would become the first suburban jurisdiction in the country to implement a $15 minimum wage, following in the footsteps of cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Pittsburgh.

“I don’t see the difference…We’re a million people. We’re larger than many, many cities in the United States,” Elrich said. “We don’t have inner cities with grinding poverty in Montgomery County, but we still have poverty in Montgomery County. The scale can be somewhat different, but we still have those problems.”

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