Students ask Howard County to fund pilot providing free menstrual products in public facilities

A Mount Hebron High School student urged the Howard County Council to add a menstrual-products pilot program to the FY2026 budget, saying students from several county high schools had previously asked for the same program at an earlier budget hearing.

Isha Ande, a junior at Mount Hebron High School, testified that students from Mount Hebron, Howard, Marriotts Ridge, Long Reach and Centennial had advocated for free menstrual products in all county community centers, athletic complexes and public libraries. “The use of menstrual products should not be a luxury,” she said, and called the absence of such a program “a responsibility the council has to protect your constituents.”

Ande presented cost estimates her group calculated: she said a three-month pilot would cost $4,964.84 and that annual continuing costs after an initial equipment or capital purchase would be $4,459.36. She also said the county's FY2026 budget was approximately $1.219 billion and that the pilot’s cost represented a very small fraction of that total; she provided a proportional figure in her testimony. Ande said some students reported using toilet paper as a substitute when products were not available and that some people in homeless shelters lacked necessary access.

Ande asked council members to consider initiating the pilot to protect health and dignity and described the program as likely to have small fiscal impact relative to the county budget.

Her remarks were made during the council's public hearing on the county executive's FY2026 proposed operating budget.