Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz, A&S ‘79

Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz, A&S ‘79

A lifelong resident of Baltimore County, Kevin Kamenetz began his career in public service as a prosecutor in the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office. In 1994, he was elected to the Baltimore County Council. In 2010, he was elected to serve as Baltimore County's twelfth County Executive, and in 2014, the people of Baltimore County reaffirmed their confidence in the Kamenetz Administration by electing him to a second term in office.

County Executive Years

In 2010, Kevin Kamenetz was elected Baltimore County Executive in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Tasked with navigating declining revenues while serving our County’s largest population ever, he established a three-pronged approach to governing by applying the principles of innovation, responsibility and efficiency.

Utilizing technology and reorganization principles, Mr. Kamenetz consolidated numerous offices and functions, creating — without furloughs or firings — the smallest County workforce in 25 years. Through disciplined fiscal management, Mr. Kamenetz prioritized funding to support the County’s core tenets of public education, public safety and the rebuilding of an aging infrastructure.

Under County Executive Kamenetz’s leadership, Baltimore County has grown and thrived. Property tax rates have not been raised in 26 years, and income tax rates have remained the same for the last 22 years. Baltimore County has maintained its “triple Triple-A” bond rating — a task accomplished by just 38 counties in the nation. Since 2010, there has been billions of dollars in private investment countywide, including $800 million in Towson, $700 million in Owings Mills, $242 million in the Southwest Enterprise Zone and $100 million in White Marsh.

Baltimore County also launched its landmark "Schools for Our Future" program, a $1.1 billion school renovation and construction initiative to meet the needs of Baltimore County’s educational facilities for the next generation by eliminating all current and projected overcrowding, modernizing our schools and making them safer. Upon its conclusion, this program allowed 97 percent of our schools to be air-conditioned, including every elementary and middle school. Baltimore County has also made great strides in public safety since 2010, recording fewer total homicides than during any four-year period since Gerald Ford was president, with some of the highest clearance rates in that nation for solving crimes.

In 2010, Mr. Kamenetz’s efforts to reduce density, protect environmentally sensitive land and watersheds, and secure Baltimore County’s rural heritage won him the coveted Valleys Planning Council’s McHarg award. In 2013, Mr. Kamenetz received the Outstanding Performance and Community Service Award from the Baltimore County Branch of the NAACP in recognition of his outstanding leadership of Baltimore County government and the significant increases in diversity among County employees. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore, the Maryland Association of Counties and the Baltimore Metropolitan Council, where he serves as chair. Mr. Kamenetz also serves on the Board of Visitors for Maryland Shock Trauma.

County Council Years

During his 16 years on the County Council, Mr. Kamenetz was selected by his colleagues to serve as Council Chairman a record four times. He served as the County's Cable Franchise negotiator, bringing cable choice to Baltimore County while saving taxpayer dollars. He drew on his experience in the criminal justice system to support public safety, crafting an innovative shopping center camera security law, which has become a national model and has also helped reduce the County’s crime rate to historic lows. He also enacted laws that improved the Code Enforcement process to protect neighborhoods, formed the NeighborSpace program which created valued open space to Baltimore County’s older communities, and refined laws to preserve historic landmark structures. In 1995, Mr. Kamenetz’s strong support of the business community earned him Person of the Year honors from the Pikesville Chamber of Commerce.

Lifelong County Resident

Born in Lochearn, where he attended Campfield Elementary School, County Executive Kamenetz graduated from the Gilman School and earned degrees from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Baltimore School of Law. Throughout his school years, he worked in his father’s drug store in Overlea. Mr. Kamenetz resides in Owings Mills with his wife, Jill, and his sons, Karson and Dylan.