April Rose Seeks Another Term With Rural Land and School Funding Priorities

Del. April Rose is making rural property issues and school funding a focus of her bid for another term representing Maryland’s District 5, according to a candidate interview published by The Frederick News-Post.

The district includes most of Carroll County and a small portion of Frederick County. Rose is one of six candidates seeking three House of Delegates seats in the Nov. 3 election.

Republican incumbent Chris Tomlinson and challenger Steve Whisler are also running. The Democratic candidates are Alison Rudolph, Dayana Bergman and Courtney Alexa Welch.

Rose, an IT recruiter who lives near Westminster, joined the legislature in 2015 through an appointment by then-Gov. Larry Hogan. She has won reelection since then. She told the newspaper that constituent service and relationships with colleagues remain central to her work, even when her own bills do not advance.

One of her priorities is revisiting a 2012 law restricting where homes using wells and septic systems can be built. Rose argues that the restrictions reduce farmers’ opportunities to sell portions of their property and push development toward southern Carroll County. Those are her stated reasons for seeking a change, rather than findings independently established by this article.

Rose also wants to change the enrollment counts used to determine state school funding. Under the approach described in the report, funding relies on the prior year’s Sept. 30 count.

She argues that a single count can miss enrollment shifts later in the year. In her view, growing systems such as Frederick County can lose out when additional students arrive after the count, while systems with declining enrollment can receive funding that no longer matches their student population.

Rose previously sought four counts a year and told the newspaper that two could be a workable compromise. The report says Frederick County Executive Jessica Fitzwater supported her enrollment-count legislation during the previous session. The interview did not provide a projected dollar impact for individual school systems.

Other priorities include securing state support for Carroll County projects and expanding fiber-optic internet service in Westminster. Rose said the delegation had not yet set its coming funding priorities, while pointing to past efforts involving fire stations, schools and playgrounds.

Rose also said she would support a statewide pause on data center development. She questioned whether development near Adamstown had received sufficient consideration of energy and environmental costs.

The proposals outline Rose’s reelection agenda. They are not newly enacted changes to development rules, school funding or data center policy.