Comptroller Brooke Lierman visits med school site, HCC and a housing project for veterans

Anyone driving along Robinwood Drive has seen the new classroom building quickly rising next to Robinwood Professional Center, all glass and white and Meritus blue.

Work is progressing on the D.M. Bowman Academic Hall for the Meritus School of Osteopathic Medicine, set to open in autumn 2025. But a visit from Maryland Comptroller Brooke Lierman on Friday gave Meritus Health officials a chance to put the work already done on display.

But as everyone was donning hard hats and safety vests, the school's inaugural dean, Paula Gregory, took a few minutes to acquaint the comptroller with the philosophy behind the project.

"Access to care is the biggest problem that we have," Gregory said, "and people are not getting care in a timely fashion."

So Meritus officials opted to open a new medical school to stem the local physician shortage.

But that isn't the only innovation. The school's focus also will be adapted to current and future medical needs.

"When you're in a medical school that's been around for a long time … it's more difficult to change," she said. "So we're using a lot of new techniques, we're looking forward to what the physician of the future needs. We're looking at the horizon."

That includes more study of infectious disease and genetics, and "a lot more tools for students to be great critical thinkers," Gregory said, adding that faculty recruited for the school have "solid research backgrounds."

Construction, hiring and accrediting processes are all on schedule for opening in 2025, and as dozens of construction workers pressed on through Friday's heat, Lierman saw how the classrooms, conference rooms and even a bathroom are taking shape.

Lierman later told The Herald-Mail she was "thrilled to see the incredible construction happening on the new medical campus."

It was the first stop on a tour that took her to several sites in Washington County, including the Center for Business and Entrepreneurial Studies at Hagerstown Community College, including the David W. Fletcher Incubator and Labs, and a housing project for veterans being developed by Platoon 22, a Frederick, Md.,-based nonprofit that aids veterans.

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Finally, Lierman met with Washington County officials and discussed new programs in the comptroller's office to aid local governments. And as she announced that the newly legal cannabis industry was bringing in millions in state tax revenues ($14.7 million in the last quarter, to be exact), the county's business and economic development director mentioned a problem her office might help with.

Seems there are folks distributing cannabis illegally and cutting into the business of the licensed distributors, Jonathan Horowitz said. Could her office help with that?

Sure can.

"That's something that both we and (the Alcohol, Tobacco and Cannabis Commission) can work on together," she said. "We go in and investigate the tax fraud and violations and they go in and investigate the cannabis violation."

So if you're distributing weed illegally, don't be surprised if both state agencies show up at your door.

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Lierman noted several factors affecting state revenues now, including the first loss in population since World War II, the number of people — particularly women — who did not return to work after COVID and other lingering economic effects of the pandemic. The state budget that goes into effect July 1 reflected cuts in areas including education.

But while the next revenue estimate report isn't due until September, Lierman told The Herald-Mail that right now, revenues are "looking good."

Lierman's visit was a part of what her office calls the "Take a Look with Brooke" tour, in which the comptroller travels around the state to meet with local business and government leaders and learn about local economies.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Comptroller Brooke Lierman visits med school site, HCC and a housing project for veterans