Democratic candidate for Harford County executive Matthew Brown has a specific vision for the county that includes growing the white-collar workforce.

As of Tuesday, Brown is the only Democrat to file for the seat.

Brown, 31, has spent the past four years working for Harford County Public Schools as an aide and substitute teacher. He filed to run for county executive on Jan. 16 after he began looking into the county’s annual budget and the $60 million deficit Harford County Public Schools faced in fiscal 2025.

“Watching both the outcry, outlash and going to a lot of the meetings led to me understanding what was going down and how to get involved, and I thought this was something I could get on and fix,” Brown said.

Brown is a Bel Air resident and a graduate of Harford Community College, where he received his associate degree in political science prior to attending University of Maryland Baltimore County, where he received a bachelor’s degree in political science.

If elected, Brown said he would like to increase county revenue by bringing more white-collar businesses to the county. He believes white-collar jobs are a dominant job market that Harford County has yet to tap because of a lack of office space.

However, Brown said addressing the shortage of office space could jeopardize the county’s rural areas because county code limits building heights for commercial facilities.

“I would want to build vertically, and a lot of people would push back and say they don’t want skyscrapers in our county, but I don’t think we need skyscrapers,” Brown said. “A three, four-story building in terms of revenue, job market and office space could be great for the county.”

Outside of job growth, Brown said the county has a lot of money dedicated to capital projects that have not been started. He said a way to free up county funds would be to cancel projects that aren’t contract-based and move the funding to build recreation centers and places for children.

“We have about 40,000 students, and what can they do within walking distance?” Brown said. “There is nothing for kids to do outside of school.”

After growing the county’s white-collar job base, raising county revenue and investing in community centers, Brown said he would like to reduce property taxes to give residents more of a vested interest in their community and encourage them to spend more time and money locally.

“A lot of people come into this county as a byproduct of housing locations but not a true desire to be part of the community or want to live here,” Brown said. “I want my community to be the best place to be, and I want my county to be a place people want to go to.”

With the remaining revenue, Brown said he would invest more money in education because he believes residents care most about their children.

A criticism Brown had of current County Executive Bob Cassilly, a Republican running for reelection, is that Cassilly has pushed back on the school system’s funding requests in recent years.

Cassilly has said that fully funding the school system’s requests would lead to tax increases for county residents. Instead, Cassilly has told Harford schools to lower expenditures to put annual funding increases on par with the county’s growth.

“If funding was an issue, why not give that money to the school?” Brown said. “The most important thing to a lot of the constituents in this county is their kids and if the kids are suffering, I think you should obey to that.”

Overall, Brown said he feels county leaders do not engage in conversation with constituents as much as he would like.

“While the County Council does a great job of explaining things, I think a lot of people feel like the county executive doesn’t sit down and talk to people,” Brown said. “I want to bring more awareness and conversation to the people because a lot of people’s distrust in the system has been due to a lack of visibility, a lack of transparency and mostly communication from leadership.”

Brown said that if elected, he would hold weekly town hall meetings in different areas of the county to allow constituents to address him directly.

If no other Democrats file, Brown will face the winner of the Republican primary on Nov. 3. So far, Cassilly and Harford County Council President Patrick Vincenti are the only Republicans to file.

The candidate filing deadline is Feb. 24 at 9 p.m. The primary election is June 23.

Have a news tip? Contact Matt Hubbard at mhubbard@baltsun.com, 443-651-0101 or @mthubb on X.