Contractor

Aberdeen Proving Ground has a lot more money to spend on contracts than it once did but not as much as in the very recent past. Such is the push-pull effect of new funding from the military's national base realignment and closure effort, coupled with tighter federal budgets and less wartime spending. The Army post in Harford County obligated $15.5 billion in the fiscal year that ended in September. That's up $12 billion from 2005, the year the BRAC changes were announced, but down nearly $2 billion from 2011.

A little-noticed provision in a massive, $633 billion military spending bill approved by Congress last week will end a decade-old battle over whether to ease export restrictions on U.S. satellite technology. If signed by President Barack Obama, the measure would be a boon for federal space contractors in Maryland and elsewhere who have long argued that the strict rules - intended to prevent foreign countries from obtaining sensitive technology - are so broad they have allowed other countries to surpass the United States in the satellite business.

Baltimore's speed camera contractor disclosed Friday that several of the city's automated cameras have been wrongly ticketing roughly one of every 20 passing cars and trucks. Officials with Xerox State and Local Solutions told a mayoral task force studying the city's program that the five cameras have been idled and are no longer issuing $40 tickets after they found during a recent review that the devices had an error rate of 5.2 percent. Those five cameras have generated at least 15,000 tickets, city records show, translating to $600,000 in potential fines for motorists.

Gov. Martin O'Malley said Tuesday that state law bars speed camera contractors from being paid based on the number of citations issued or paid - a so-called bounty system approach used by Baltimore City, Baltimore County and elsewhere in Maryland. "The law says you're not supposed to charge by volume. I don't think we should charge by volume," O'Malley said. "If any county is, they need to change their program. " In brief comments, O'Malley weighed in for the first time on criticism of speed cameras since The Baltimore Sun published an investigation of the devices, focusing on the city's network of 83 radar-equipped cameras.

A Defense Department funding bill has made bedfellows of two groups more likely to be found in opposite corners: federal labor and federal contractors. The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and the Professional Services Council (PSC) object to Section 341 of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2013. The Senate approved it last week. They are not alone in opposing the measure, which would require the Pentagon to cut more than $5 billion in planned spending for its civilian and contractor workforces through fiscal 2017.

An Anne Arundel County company that specializes in highway excavation and vegetation control warned Maryland regulators that it will lay off 75 employees because a contract was not renewed, the state said Tuesday. Mercier's Inc. in Harmans told the state that the cuts would come at the end of the year, but it expects many of the laid-off workers will land jobs with the new contractor. The company could not be reached for comment. jhopkins@baltsun.com twitter.com/jsmithhopkins Text BUSINESS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun Business text alerts

Police have identified the contractor who was killed Wednesday when a falling tree crushed him outside Annapolis. The man, whose family members were at the scene, was working to help clear trees downed and weakened by this week's storm, officials said Thursday. Family members told authorities the man was Santiago Lopez, 50, who was living in Annapolis and was originally from Mexico, police said. The man was working in a home's backyard when the tree fell, killing him before emergency workers arrived about 1 p.m., Anne Arundel County Police spokesman Justin Mulcahy said.

Unlicensed home improvement contractors will undoubtedly be trying to take advantage “of distraught homeowners anxious to complete repairs as soon as possible,” Maryland's Labor and Licensing Department said the day after the storm called Sandy blew through the state. “Scam artists often follow damaging storms. Don't be fooled by an unlicensed contractor who offers to do a job at a lower price than a licensed contractor,” said Leonard Howie, secretary of Maryland's Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, in a statement Wednesday.

Annapolis officials are considering a plan to remove trash cans from city parks, a strategy they say would save money and could keep public spaces cleaner. Without trash cans, officials said, visitors would take refuse with them or learn to not produce it in the first place. Other parks across the country have adopted such "trash-free" policies, including all Maryland state parks and scores of national parks, which urge visitors to "leave no trace. " In Annapolis, the idea comes amid broader changes that, for the first time, shifted city trash service into private hands to cut costs.

A 45-year-old man doing contract work clearing trees after superstorm Sandy in a residential community in Annapolis was killed by a falling tree on Wednesday afternoon, according to the Anne Arundel County Fire Department. The death is the second caused by a falling tree in Anne Arundel since Sandy entered the region. On Monday night, 74-year-old Donald C. Cannata, Sr. was killed in the kitchen of his Pasadena home after a tree smashed through the roof. In Annapolis, emergency crews first responded shortly before 1 p.m. to the 1600 block of Homewood Road for a report of an injured contractor, said Chief Michael Cox, a fire spokesman.