For three years, Calvert County’s Ethics Commission has struggled to keep enough volunteers in its seats to hold a legal meeting. Now its members will be paid to show up.
At their Sept. 29 meeting, the Calvert County Board of County Commissioners approved, on a voice vote with no opposition heard, a per-meeting stipend for Ethics Commission members: $600 for the chair and $500 for each member. Alternates will receive the member rate when they sit in for an appointed member. The money, $27,900 for the nine meetings left in fiscal year 2027, will come from the county administrator’s contingency fund, according to the meeting and a memo in the agenda packet from County Administrator Linda Turner.
The approval covers only the rest of this fiscal year. Commission Chair John Traas told the board the commission will have to come back during the FY28 budget process to ask that the stipends be made permanent.
“If we don’t have a quorum, we can’t have a meeting,” Traas told commissioners. “We can’t put on decisions.”
A quorum problem
The Ethics Commission administers the Calvert County Public Ethics Law, which the commissioners adopted in February 1982. It provides ethics training, reviews financial disclosure statements, issues advisory opinions and investigates alleged ethics violations.
Traas said the commission struggled with quorum and keeping members from 2023 to 2025. Former members asked the commissioners for stipends on Jan. 23, 2024. The board took that request under advisement and tabled it. Some commissioners asked the ethics panel to return to in-person meetings first, and to gather Maryland Association of Counties data on whether other counties pay ethics commissioners. The commission moved to in-person meetings in June 2026.
Turnover has been steep. Traas, who joined in July 2024, said only one member who was there when he arrived is still serving. Three current members joined in January. The vice chair’s term ends in January, and Traas said he does not know whether that member will continue. One regular seat is vacant, and Traas said filling it has been slow: the opening has been there since March. Traas also said a stipend would factor into whether he renews his own term.
The commission’s FY26 annual report lists the current roster:
- John Traas, chair (term through June 30, 2027)
- Neil Reichenberg, vice chair
- Ray Shackleford, secretary
- John Kaiser, member
- Laura Ragan, alternate
More work, longer meetings
Traas said the commission’s meeting time, open and closed sessions combined, rose about 75% from FY25 to FY26. Advisory opinions and complaint outcomes more than doubled over the same period. Meetings that once ran about an hour now start at 5:30 p.m. and have run as late as 9 p.m., he said, and he called the workload “a new normal.” The commission has already received about 11 advisory opinion requests and complaints so far in FY27.
According to its FY26 report, the commission:
- held 14 meetings
- issued 19 advisory opinions
- handled 11 complaints
- collected and reviewed more than 700 financial disclosure statements
The commission’s FY26 budget was $14,000. In June it asked for an additional $5,000, for a total of $19,000. Its actual spending on legal fees alone came to $16,086.
| Item | Figure |
|---|---|
| FY26 budget (incl. $5,000 adjustment) | $19,000 |
| FY26 legal fees | $16,086 |
| Meetings held, FY26 | 14 |
| Advisory opinions | 19 |
| Complaints | 11 |
| Financial disclosures reviewed | 700+ |
| Meeting time, FY25 to FY26 | Up about 75% |
| Stipends approved, rest of FY27 (9 meetings) | $27,900 |
| Per meeting: chair / member | $600 / $500 |
Joining a short list
Calvert has 38 boards and commissions, Traas said, and until this vote only four paid stipends: the Planning Commission, Board of Appeals, Police Accountability Board and Administrative Charging Committee. Each pays its chair $600 a meeting and other members $500, the same rates the Ethics Commission will now receive.
Commissioners who spoke backed the request. One noted the board had asked the ethics panel to meet certain conditions in 2024. “You met your obligations, and I think it’s time we meet our obligations,” he said. Another thanked members for returning to in-person meetings and noted the board “has been attacked legally in the past.”
Board appointments were a theme of the Sept. 29 session. In the same meeting, commissioners voted 3-2 to fill Board of Appeals seats despite a pending lawsuit over that board.
Residents interested in serving on the Ethics Commission can find openings and applications on the Calvert County Government website.
