This week, Baltimore County Councilman Todd Crandell announced he is not running for reelection, opting to focus on his sobriety and recovery after a difficult year in the public eye.

What the three-term Republican did not say is that he could earn more as a retired councilman than as a working one. That’s because of legislation the council passed that boosts the pensions of councilmembers and ties future increases to their salaries, which are going up as the job becomes full time. The county’s salary board, mostly appointed by the county executive, was then charged with deciding how much that raise would be.

Councilmembers now earn $69,000 a year. At the end of December, the salary board approved bumping their pay to $140,000. The council has to ratify the increase before the November election; it could also reduce the amount.

Crandell and fellow Republican Wade Kach, who have served together on the council for 12 years, are entitled to $41,400 in pension benefits after they leave office. If the council approves the new salaries, they will each be entitled to $84,000 a year.

Members can begin collecting pensions at age 55. Crandell is 56. Kach is 79.

The council pension would be Kach’s third — he earns one from his years as a teacher and from his decades as a Maryland state delegate.

Tom Quirk, a former councilman who chaired the county’s Spending Affordability Committee, was aghast at learning of the bump, calling it unprecedented.

“It’s just self-dealing, brazen audacity,” Quirk said. “These pension increases are close to 100% increases, and they are giving it to themselves at a time when ordinary people are struggling.”

Kach voted for the legislation in 2024 to boost pensions. Crandell was absent. The council has yet to take up the salary board’s recommendation.

Crandell declined requests for comment.

Kach, who introduced the measure, said he never expected the salary board to recommend such a high salary and he doubts the council will approve it.

“I just don’t see the appetite for doubling it,” Kach said. “You can imagine the public outcry. It would just be irresponsible.”

Three council Democrats who voted for the pension bump — Julian Jones, Izzy Patoka and Pat Young — said the pension doubling was an unintended consequence of moving to a full-time council and that the council will address the matter before the year is over.

A fourth, Democrat Mike Ertel, was the lone vote against the pension bump. Reached this week, Ertel said only that he stood by his vote. A fifth, Republican David Marks, said he is open to changes in the salary and pension recommendations through a public process.

Young, Patoka and Jones are running for county executive and thus not seeking reelection to their council seats.

Young would benefit the least from the changes because he is only 42 and has served just one term. He blames his vote on a convergence of priorities that came to a head, saying, “Folks don’t know what they’re voting on.”

Young and Jones voted for the pension increase despite opposing a bill to expand the council from seven to nine members in July 2024; both said they were troubled by the increased salaries that came with it.

“The implication that some folks who are clearly on their way out are going to benefit immensely is, once again, an overlooked piece of this whole thing that I feel like should have been discussed but just wasn’t done,” Young said.

Passing the bump

So how did some councilmembers pass a pension increase that could end up doubling two retiring colleagues’ salaries?

The process began in 2022, when Jones introduced Bill 56-22. That bill would have repealed a provision passed in 2010 that capped the pension benefit at 60% of a member’s salary. Many people opposed a repeal, so the bill capped the pension benefit at 70% instead. So, if a councilmember earned $100,000, the pension benefit would be $70,000.

Next, Jones codified executive council compensation with Bill 8-23.

Then Kach introduced Bill 40-24, which allows retired members to get a pension increase every time current members get a pay increase. At the time, Kach said he was doing it because councilmembers do not receive cost-of living raises or promotions and this would help compensate them.

Finally, Patoka introduced Bill 47-24, which placed a charter amendment to expand the council to nine members on the ballot. The bill also said that councilmembers’ salaries would increase to those of full-time employees. The bill specifies only that they be paid like full-time employees, which the county’s Personnel and Salary Advisory Board sets and the council approves. It does not preclude them holding other jobs.

Baltimore County voters approved the expansion in November 2024, and the Personnel and Salary Advisory Board recommended last month that councilmembers elected in 2026 earn $140,000 annually. The chair would earn $150,000.

Patoka said those salaries needed to be higher to attract diverse candidates, something he said has worked, because current candidates include several people of color and women. The current council is all male, nearly all white (Jones is Black) and all over 50 except Young.

The personnel board’s decision would bump Kach and Crandell’s annual pensions to $84,000 each. Jones’ would also reach $84,000. Marks’ pension would jump to $98,000, and Patoka’s would increase to $60,000.

Jones, who is retired after 32 years with the Anne Arundel County Fire Department, has no plans to retire from public service. Neither does Patoka, who has decades of public service with Baltimore City and the county. Marks, who is a teacher in addition to his council job, also is not planning to retire soon.

Baltimore County Budget Director Kevin Reed confirmed the pension amounts but referred questions to the County Council members.

‘Nobody does that’

The pension bump came to light in November 2024, when the bill passed, but its implications did not crystallize until the personnel board issued its recommendation in late December. At that time, former County Administrative Officer Fred Homan crunched the pension numbers and sent an 18-page document about them to the council, reporters, union officials and community leaders.

Homan, a frequent critic of the administration, was particularly concerned because county teachers had fought for a raise and he didn’t think the council had supported their efforts.

“I wanted anyone who interacted with the council on budgetary decisions to understand how they prioritized themselves here,” Homan said.

Kach and Patoka believe the council can temper the increase — and the outrage — with a vote to decrease a member’s salary and cap the pension benefit. Homan, though, said the only solution is to repeal Kach’s bill.

John Hohman, a retired county fire chief and union official who received the memo, said he’s never seen a public official negotiate a pension tied to future salaries.

“Nobody can ever do that. Nobody does that,” Hohman said.

The move, he believes, was deliberate. “They knew what they were doing the whole time,” he said. “None of them are idiots. That’s exactly why Ertel voted no.”

Then-County Executive Johnny Olszewski, Jr., now a member of Congress, also did not like the bill. It became law without his signature. He said at the time it was “legislation that I just didn’t agree with.”

This article has been updated to state that Councilman Todd Crandell was absent when the council approved the pension increase in 2024.