On some grand and glorious day in the future, journalists will have the tools to precisely measure the mindset of elected officials. Had such a device been available this week, it might well have revealed that the 188 state lawmakers who adjourned sine die Monday from their annual 90-day legislative session were not fully in the customary confetti-tossing mood. Oh, there was little doubt that plenty were happy to leave Annapolis after such a demanding three months, focused most intensely on fixing a $3.3 billion budget deficit, but it might have been offset by their growing sense of irrelevancy.

It is, after all, pretty tough to pat yourself on the back for balancing a state budget when just 32 miles down the road, a U.S. president is throwing caution to the wind with tariffs that can be imposed (or lifted) at the drop of a hat and a reordering of government that will make your fiscal choices look like you just applied a Band-Aid to a penetrating wound. But that’s the cards they were dealt. And while the Maryland General Assembly’s budget repairs are, as we’ve noted before, reasonable on the whole, government finances at the federal, state and local levels remain a moving target.

The question is not what state delegates and senators just did or even what Gov. Wes Moore ultimately signs into law, it’s what comes next.

In that regard, here’s what we’ll be paying close attention to in the coming months: the Board of Public Works. As perhaps only State House insiders fully appreciate, this three-person panel composed of Gov. Wes Moore, Comptroller Brooke Lierman and Treasurer Dereck Davis holds certain administrative powers that are uncontested when the legislature is in recess. They approve capital projects, procurements, acquisitions, transfers of assets and so on. Should the newly approved state budget go out of whack, it will be up to the board to take corrective action. Are they up to the job?

That’s a good question. Lierman and Davis kept a relatively low profile during the legislative session with Lierman, for example, appearing before committees to lobby for expanded investment in her tax collection agency, to allow the state to dispose of cryptocurrency as abandoned property in certain cases and to fund abortion care. Will she be as willing to make far less politically popular choices? The alternative would be, of course, for the governor to call a special session and recall lawmakers to Annapolis, a possibility that one insider rates “50-50” given the economic uncertainties ahead.

Not all was bad news in Annapolis, of course. As painful as some delayed implementation of the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future education reforms may be to advocates, most should be glad that its goals remain intact. We are also cautiously optimistic that the “Next Generation Energy Act” will help (eventually) to reduce energy prices and encourage new power generation in the state. But if lawmakers are going to brag, or at least claim to have made notable progress on a longstanding concern, we would humbly suggest they talk about their record on criminal justice reform.

Perhaps not as well noticed during a session dominated by pessimism is the more hopeful outlook for Marylanders to allow former criminal offenders to return to society and lead productive lives. The Second Look Act will give long-serving incarcerated individuals an opportunity to have their sentences reduced. It comes with limits, of course. Someone who has committed a sex offense or was sentenced to life in prison without parole or who killed a first responder would not be eligible.

Related legislation, the Expungement Reform Act of 2025, makes it easier to clear your record once you have served your sentence. And a third directs the Maryland Parole Commission to consider an inmate’s health and whether he or she is age 65 or older (also known as “medical and geriatric parole”).

These sorts of reforms don’t come easily, but it’s notable that they happened so close to the 10-year anniversary of the death of Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old Baltimorean who died of injuries sustained in police custody. His death, the protests that followed and promised police reforms have given hope to those who seek to address not only crime — and the too-easy path toward such behavior — but longstanding divisions of race, class, ethnicity and gender that make that destructive route so difficult to avoid.

And, notably, just like the budget, these efforts remain works in progress. That doesn’t make the job of a delegate or senator any easier but perhaps they can at least recognize that some progress has been made.