Integrating Dynamic Scoring into Fiscal Notes

Maryland's Department of Legislative Services currently scores major legislation on a five-year horizon that captures upfront costs but misses the delayed economic returns of long-term investments, higher lifetime wages, lower crime, reduced Medicaid spending, that only materialize over a decade or more.

This proposal recommends embedding a 15-year dynamic scoring model into fiscal notes for generational investments, starting with the Blueprint for Maryland's Future, and outlines a practical "two-yes rule" requiring evidence of both durable growth potential and material fiscal effects before the fuller model applies. The memo estimates that without this change, the state is obscuring more than a billion dollars in long-run costs and benefits on a single policy area alone.