Budget Process

Harford voters must decide Tuesday whether to grant the County Council more power in the budget process.Question A on the ballot asks voters whether they favor or oppose an amendment to the county's charter that would give the council power to make budget cuts and then move the amount it cuts into a separate contingency reserve fund.The council has the power to cut any part of the budget, but it may add money only to Board of Education budget. Money that comes from budget cuts that is not shifted to education, is, in effect, lost and cannot be used elsewhere.

The county will miss its first deadline in the budget process later this month, when the spending affordability committee fails to reporton taxpayers' ability to support the government.The seven-memberpanel, created by a charter amendment voters passed in November, is mandated to finish reviewing county finances and issue its report by Jan. 30.But County Executive Robert R. Neall plans to extend the deadlinebecause he has not yet announced his appointments to the committee, which require County Council approval.

For the first time, the Carroll County Commissioners have invited PTA representatives to attend budget meetings in an attempt to educate parents about local school funding and seek their input in spending decisions.Parents will join county and school officials in September as they begin to develop budgets for all county departments, including Carroll's public schools.Commissioner W. Benjamin Brown said he came up with the idea after meeting in the spring with PTA groups from individual schools.

Call this the doctrine of overwhelming force, spending style. Just as former Gen. Colin L. Powell advocated fighting wars using "every resource and tool" available, that leave-no-soldier-back-at-the-barracks approach is what it took to persuade the Senate last week to give up $14 billion in pork projects it had added with abandon to emergency legislation financing the Iraq war and Katrina recovery. Like the Powell doctrine, the proportion of effort to results was like using a sledgehammer on an ant. But it's not often two of the most audacious Senate spenders are beaten.

The battle of wills over Harford County's fiscal 1994 budge has been decided, on a hair-splitting technicality that reflects the strained relations between the council and the county executive.Wielding a line-item veto, County Executive Eileen M. Rehrmann berated the County Council for passing an illegal budget, predicting chaos in the budget process if the legislative body prevailed. Council President Jeffrey D. Wilson accused her of showing contempt for the council, treating the members like rowdy schoolchildren in need of discipline.

Crafting a budget acceptable to the governor and two houses of the legislature is always an accomplishment. But with state revenues plunging, the budget process has cast a longer shadow than usual over this year's General Assembly session. In a sluggish economy, a stripped-down budget is inevitable -- even desirable. But instead of embracing broad visions like those embodied in the Linowes proposal, this legislature will be remembered for just saying no -- not merely to spending for ambitious new projects but also to transportation tax measures necessary to keep up the state's infrastructure and tax reform to maintain the level of services and bolster prospects for a prosperous future.

Hundreds of county employees and teachers are expected to pack the County Council chambers tonight for a vote on County Executive Robert R. Neall's bill to give him and the council broad powers to cut the budget.The bill calls for a second round of budget hearings, nearly six months after the 1991-1992 budget was passed in May. But Councilman David G. Boschert, believing Neall's budget act gives him power to veto any changes the council makes, will introduce amendments thatallow the council to increase the budget and to shift money between categories -- powers it does not have during the normal budget process.

Frustrated by what members call a lack of information, the AnnapolisCity Council's Finance Committee made few changes in Mayor Alfred A.Hopkins' proposed fiscal 1992 budget.Instead, most of the committee's recommendations will affect the following year's budget. The committee proposed an overhaul of the city's budget process that would change the way future budgets are put together."We need to bring Annapolis' budget process into the 19th centuryat least, and what we'd really like is to get it into the 21st century," said Alderman John R. Hammond, R-Ward 1, the committee's chairman.

With Baltimore County attempting to cut 200 positions in hopes of saving $15 million for next budget year, city officials say they're also eyeing a dire budget year. Ryan O'Doherty, spokesman for Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, said city budget analysts are predicting a "significant" shortfall this budget cycle – which will cause the mayor to make "difficult reductions" to city government when the budget process begins next spring. "We expect to have budget projections that show a significant shortfall," he said.

This year's amiable school budget process continued through another important step yesterday - the Howard County Council's hearing on school funding and needs. The annual hearing, often called a "beg-a-thon," has for several years been characterized by spirited demonstrations, passionate pleas for money and long lines of parents and community members waiting to give council members what-for about potential cuts to the schools' budget. Last year's hearing, for example, lasted more than six hours, as more than 200 people filed to the microphone to speak their minds.