Buyout

Gov. Martin O'Malley offered state workers a $15,000 buyout Tuesday to quit by the end of January — the latest effort by officials to cut costs as they look ahead to another huge budget shortfall next year. The offer, which adds $200 per year of service, is the first of its kind extended by the O'Malley administration. "This is part of many things that we're going to have to do" to close the budget gap, O'Malley said after establishing the State Employees' Voluntary Separation Program by executive order.

One Maryland county is willing to sacrifice some of its most experienced employees to help close an $8 million budget gap and avoid layoffs. Facing the same revenue shortfalls afflicting all levels of government, Harford County is offering a generous early retirement package to its oldest and longest-serving employees. About a third of the county's 1,000 workers are eligible, and their departures could save the county as much as $5 million. County officials are coping with a nearly 14 percent decline in income tax revenues this year and hoping the buyouts will help them balance a nearly $765 million budget.

One Maryland county is willing to sacrifice some of its most experienced employees to help close an $8 million budget gap and avoid lay-offs. Facing the same revenue shortfalls plaguing all levels of government, Harford County is offering a generous early retirement package to its oldest and longest serving employees. About a third of the county's 1,000 workers are eligible, and their departures could save the county as much as $5 million. County officials are coping with a nearly 14 percent decline in income tax revenues this year and hoping the buyouts will help them balance a nearly $765 million budget.

DETROIT - Ford Motor Co. has offered buyout or retirement incentive packages to all of its 41,000 U.S. hourly workers as it tries to further reduce its factory work force. Ford, the healthiest of Detroit's three automakers and the only one to avoid government aid and bankruptcy protection, still has more workers than it needs to produce cars and trucks at current sales levels, said company spokesman Mark Truby. He would not say how many workers Ford expects to take the packages, which include cash payments and other incentives such as vouchers to buy cars and short-term health insurance.

Gov. Martin O'Malley waded into a brewing controversy over football coach Ralph Friedgen's contract at the University of Maryland, saying that public funds shouldn't be used to buy out his contract if that's what officials in College Park decide to do. "Were they to decide that there needed to be a change, I would hope that they not use public funds to buy out that contract," O'Malley said Tuesday in a response to questions from reporters....

Workers at Advertising.com in Baltimore will be eligible to participate in a voluntary buyout program that its parent company, AOL LLC, is planning next month as part of a larger effort to cut one-third of its work force, or 2,500 positions. Advertising.com, which is AOL's online advertising network, employs about 400 people at the Tide Point office complex in South Baltimore. Time Warner Inc. is spinning off AOL, a one-time Internet giant, on Dec. 9, and the company will be accepting volunteers to leave between Dec. 4 and 11. AOL, which is based in New York City, has said that if it does not get enough volunteers, it will resort to involuntary layoffs.

After 21 years on-air at Baltimore's WMAR, Mary Beth Marsden, the face of Channel 2 news, is leaving the station. Taken with Sally Thorner's planned retirement from WJZ next month, Marsden's exit marks a changing of the guard on the local airwaves. It also signals big changes ahead in personnel and presentation for Baltimore's last-place station. And in a larger sense, some analysts see her departure as one more indication that we are witnessing the end of an era in TV news when anchors spent decades at the same station and became a valued part of viewers' lives through the nightly ritual of presenting them with the day's news.

After 21 years on-air at Baltimore's WMAR, Mary Beth Marsden, the face of Channel 2 news, is leaving the station. Taken with Sally Thorner's planned retirement from WJZ next month, Marsden's exit marks a changing of the guard on the local airwaves. It also signals big changes ahead in personnel and presentation for Baltimore's last-place station. And in a larger sense, some analysts see her departure as one more indication that we are witnessing the end of an era in TV news when anchors spent decades at the same station and became a valued part of viewers' lives through the nightly ritual of presenting them with the day's news.

Americans don't have to have a 401(k) to be worried about the havoc on Wall Street. They don't have to be fiscal conservatives to cringe at the billions the federal government has added to its balance sheet to bail out international insurance giant AIG, mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and investment house Bear Stearns. Their anxiety over joblessness, diminished buying power and a depressed housing market have intensified with the wild fluctuations in the stock market and the accompanying credit crunch.