Funding

Faced with a 27 percent drop in the value of its endowment funds and expected cuts in state and local government grants, the Walters Art Museum announced yesterday a restructuring plan that includes laying off seven of its 150 employees, imposing a salary and limited hiring freeze and staff furloughs, and canceling an exhibition that was to have had the museum collaborating with the Musee d'Orsay in Paris and the Getty in Los Angeles. Earlier this year, Hackerman House, where the Walters' Asian art collection is displayed, was closed weekdays in a cost-cutting move.

Maryland lawmakers negotiating the details of the state's annual budget met Saturday and worked to resolve several differences but put off decisions on key points of contention until later this week. The budget conference committee must reconcile versions of the nearly $14 billion operating budget approved by the Senate and House of Delegates, and they are racing to wrap up before the General Assembly adjourns April 13. They face a constitutional deadline to finish the budget Monday, but that is often extended.

No one would disagree that all children should receive a quality education, and that our state and nation depend on it for a competitive work force and cohesive citizenry. Yet that isn't happening, despite the fact that such an education in Maryland is a constitutional right - as well as a matter of self-interest and moral principle. Worse, at the special session of the General Assembly that starts today - called by Gov. Martin O'Malley to deal with the state's fiscal problems - the state may be on the path to backtrack on this right and the progress achieved over the past decade.

WASHINGTON -- Negotiations to pay for the war in Iraq fell apart yesterday as the White House accused Democrats of "being dug in" on a timeline for withdrawing U.S. troops. Democrats charged that President Bush refused to accept any accountability for how the war is proceeding. During a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill, Democratic leaders offered to drop billions of dollars in domestic spending if Bush would agree to a timetable to pull troops out of Iraq, a schedule that he could waive if he deemed it militarily necessary.

As members of Congress return from Thanksgiving recess next week, they will have a list of unfinished business to confront, most pressing of which will be approving funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. While there remains a great deal to debate in regard to funding the war in Iraq, no such disagreement exists in supporting the mission in Afghanistan. Despite this fact, the Bush administration demands that Congress appropriate war funding for Iraq and Afghanistan collectively - as if they were the same war. This poses a grave dilemma.

WASHINGTON -- A year away from opening a new education complex in Owings Mills, the Irvine Nature Center had been counting on the $335,000 in federal funding that Rep. John Sarbanes worked to secure for it in the 2008 budget. But with President Bush threatening to veto the spending bill that contains that earmark, the federal contribution to the $11.5 million building project is now in limbo. "It makes it extremely difficult," said Michele Speaks, director of institutional advancement for the private, nonprofit center.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to nearly double funding - up to $93.9 million - for "anti-recidivism" efforts in his state, including more drug treatment, counseling and housing assistance for inmates upon their release. Schwarzenegger, a Republican, understands that meeting the primary goal of a state corrections system - protecting the public - includes keeping the worst criminals behind bars and reducing the rate at which other inmates commit crimes once they return to society.

Washington -- President Bush said yesterday that he would ask Congress to increase U.S. support for global HIV/AIDS programs to $30 billion over five years from the current commitment of $15 billion. The White House estimates the increased spending would treat 2.5 million people, prevent 12 million infections and provide additional care for 12 million people, among them 5 million orphans and other children. In the program's first three years, through March, it helped pay for treatment of 1.1 million people in 15 countries, nearly all of them in Africa.

Annapolis public housing officials failed to spend nearly a third of the money allocated by the city for public safety, prompting Mayor Ellen O. Moyer to announce yesterday that the city wants a bigger say over how the agency uses the funding. Moyer, who has been quarrelling for years with the Housing Authority of the City of Annapolis over funding for crime prevention and its direction, said she was surprised to see a July letter in which housing officials said they used $136,000 of the $200,000 the city had provided in the past fiscal year.

Unhappy about changes in the way the United Way allocates its grants, the Howard County executive said yesterday that he would like the county to break away from United Way of Central Maryland and form a competing local organization. County Executive Ken Ulman said he has heard from a number of local groups whose funding has been cut and that he is exploring the creation of a group to solicit funds from public and private donors for local charities. A spokeswoman for United Way of America said she does not know of a local government that has left the United Way in recent years.

Dorchester County gets funds for water projects Dorchester County will receive a $3 million injection of federal stimulus funding to help build water and sewer lines and a stormwater management facility at a technology park in Cambridge, federal officials said Friday. The federal Economic Development Administration grant is expected to help create jobs and encourage private investment in the area, officials said. The project was made possible due to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

WASHINGTON -- The Senate voted Monday to block the Department of Housing and Urban Development from giving grants to ACORN, a community organization under fire most recently after workers in Baltimore were videotaped giving advice on evading tax laws to a couple posing as a pimp and prostitute. The 83-7 vote would deny housing and community grant funding to ACORN, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin voted for the measure; Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski was not present for the voting.

Hiring new teachers and buying classroom technology are among the ways that Anne Arundel County school officials are planning to spend their chunk of approximately $33 million in federal stimulus funding earmarked for the school system. The largest portion of the windfall - about $18 million - will fund special education students in the form of technology for classrooms and the hiring of teachers and aides. The school system will receive about $9 million this year and next year. "We're just trying to use it as quickly and efficiently as we can and get it out in the economy," said Susan Bowen, director of budgets and finance for the county schools.

State and federal governments would receive new enforcement powers and funds to clean up the Chesapeake Bay - but would also have to meet firm deadlines to act - under proposed legislation released Tuesday by Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin. Cardin, chairman of a subcommittee that oversees the Environmental Protection Agency's bay program, said the bill would give states more authority to regulate runoff and provide more than $1.5 billion in new funds to clean up urban and suburban storm water, a growing and costly source of pollution fouling the Chesapeake.

As President Barack Obama prepares to address Congress on health care reform, America's pro-life movement is gassing up. If Mr. Obama hasn't liked the tenor of town-hall meetings, wait until he meets pro-lifers at full throttle. They're planning a major drive to try to stop federal funding of abortion as allowed under proposed health care legislation. Mr. Obama has partly invited this havoc by not being completely forthright about how health care reform, as currently proposed, would provide taxpayer funding for abortion.

Maryland put in a bid Monday for $360 million in federal economic stimulus funds to upgrade the state's creaky passenger rail network, seeking money to replace an aging tunnel under downtown Baltimore, expand the BWI Marshall airport rail station and open up other bottlenecks in intercity and commuter train travel in the Northeast Corridor. Most of the federal money the state has requested would go toward studying and engineering the eight projects on its wish list, which includes replacement of three bridges across the Bush, Gunpowder and Susquehanna rivers north of Baltimore, and separating passenger and freight trains from Perryville to Elkton.

As Gov. Martin O'Malley prepares to announce $470 million in budget cuts this week, he has rejected proposals to severely slash funding for the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore and the Baltimore City Department of Social Services. The Democratic governor and former Baltimore mayor has been weighing recommendations for closing a projected shortfall in the fiscal year that began last month. In recent days, he and administration officials have been poring over options for line-item reductions to balance the $13 billion state operating budget.

A looming new round of $250 million in cuts in state aid to local governments has Howard County officials searching for ways to absorb the reductions, though County Executive Ken Ulman said he does not yet know their exact scope. Meanwhile, he is meeting with county budget director Raymond S. Wacks to look for more ways to save money. The county lost $14.5 million last spring in state funding for the current fiscal year, prompting Ulman to impose furloughs, lay off several employees, limit pay raises, leave some vacant jobs unfilled and trim general fund spending by about 4 percent.

A statewide health information exchange that would give doctors computerized access to patients' medical histories got a $10 million funding boost Wednesday. The Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission, the state agency that sets rates that hospitals can charge, approved the startup funding to build the system that's been studied for several years. The funding comes from a surcharge of a few pennies on hospital bills, which are mostly footed by insurance companies. "This will give health care providers the right information at the point of care so that they can make the best diagnosis and treatment decision, while in a framework that protects patient privacy," said David Horrocks, president of Chesapeake Regional Information System for our Patients.

Should the federal government authorize more funding for the Cash for Clunkers program, which gives incentives for people to trade old cars for new ones that get higher gas mileage? Yes 39% No 58% Not sure 3% (992 votes, results not scientific) Next poll: : Should homeowners be allowed to erect wind turbines on their roofs? Vote at baltimoresun.com/vote