Local Aid

ANNAPOLIS -- Unable to agree on taxes, Maryland lawmakers shifted their attention back to the state budget yesterday, hoping they can at least get that approved before the 90-day session expires at midnight Monday.But even that effort fell apart last night.House and Senate conferees on the budget abruptly decided there was no sense in meeting because the House wanted nearly $50 million in appropriations for expanded local aid programs, while the Senate conferees did not.The aid would include a $30 million grant to Baltimore and five poor rural counties, and would provide $17 million to finance educational placements for disabled students.

The House Democratic leadership is expected to meet Wednesday in Annapolis to discuss a proposed special session to expand gambling in Maryland. A spokeswoman for House SpeakerMichael E. Busch confirmed that senior House leaders and key delegation chairs will meet at 4 p.m. The gathering could be crucial to any decision to call a special session. Busch is believed to be trying to round up the votes it would take to pass a gambling expansion in the House, which so far has been the obstacle to a deal that would allow a casino inPrince George's Countyin exchange for permitting table games there and at the five already approved sites.

As Maryland's budget gap grows, so too do election-year promises from gubernatorial candidates about what they won't cut. Democrat Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Republican Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. pledged yesterday not to reduce state money distributed to cities and towns despite a projected $1.7 billion budget shortfall that legislators must close by the spring. The candidates made the promise at yesterday's fall conference of the Maryland Municipal League, an association of 157 localities.

Mayors and county executives gave Gov. Martin O'Malley a standing ovation this week when he told them he did not plan to shore up state finances by passing millions of dollars in teacher retirement expenses on to local governments. But on Friday, the local leaders got a reality check: There's still plenty of pain headed their way. As state lawmakers prepare for the 2011 legislative session, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller and House Speaker Michael E. Busch are warning that it will likely be impossible to balance the state's $13 billion operating budget without squeezing local aid. "Let's all work together to solve the problem," Busch told local leaders Friday at the winter conference of the Maryland Association of Counties.

ANNAPOLIS -- Gov. William Donald Schaefer, forced to slash spending for the sixth time in 15 months, recommended yesterday unpaid furloughs for state workers as well as deep new cuts in local aid and ordered state agency budgets to be squeezed again.Legislative leaders generally disapproved of the plan, but were virtually paralyzed by indecision and could not agree on anything to suggest in its place."This is reality," Mr. Schaefer said, referring to his legal responsibility to eliminate the $225 million deficit that developed in the two months since he and the legislature trimmed $446 million.

State Republican lawmakers recommended deep cuts to education, state government and local aid Tuesday afternoon at a rare joint Senate and House hearing called by Democratic leaders to blunt criticism that they had excluded the minority party from the budget process. The exercise blended election year partisanship with an earnest effort by some members to trim fat from the state's $13 billion general fund budget for next year. It also revealed the challenges all lawmakers face when dealing with plummeting revenues: The GOP offered two plans, both relying on federal stimulus dollars, but one fails to specify how spending reductions would be maintained beyond the current year.

Rep. Helen Delich Bentley wants to cut one of Baltimore's most lucrative sources of state aid -- the money set aside for street repair and other transportation-related programs.The Republican candidate for governor said this week that the city should receive a smaller proportion of the money disbursed to local jurisdictions from Maryland's Consolidated Transportation Trust Fund. Under the current formula, Baltimore gets about $152 million annually."I think it should be pared down some," Mrs. Bentley said at a debate Monday in response to a question on the local aid formula.

Round No. 6 of Maryland's emergency budget-cutting drama brought howls of anguish yesterday from county executives and Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke. And for good reason. Taking another $143 million out of local aid -- after earlier reductions of $230 million -- will force substantial reductions in county and city social programs. More layoffs seem inevitable.Can this painful step be avoided? Only if state legislators resign themselves to raising taxes. That isn't likely, given the adamant refusal of House leaders -- especially Speaker R. Clayton Mitchell -- even to consider a sizable tax increase.

SOLOMONS -- Gov. Parris N. Glendening tried last night to reassure nervous local officials that his proposed income tax cut and spending initiatives will not force a reduction in aid to local governments.Rather, he told a gathering of the Maryland Association of Counties, state aid to local governments will continue to grow as expected despite the drop in state revenue."Under our fiscal plan, local aid will increase more than 5 percent annually over the next three years," Glendening said.

The city Senate delegation is backing a bill that some of its members think could change the way Maryland tax dollars are apportioned, and help poorer jurisdictions such as Baltimore.The bill technically would appropriate $11.4 million that already was in the budget passed this week for local jurisdictions, including $9.8 million for Baltimore.The language in the bill would establish a formula that takes into account population and the amount of tax revenue raised by the local jurisdiction.

State Republican lawmakers recommended deep cuts to education, state government and local aid Tuesday afternoon at a rare joint Senate and House hearing called by Democratic leaders to blunt criticism that they had excluded the minority party from the budget process. The exercise blended election year partisanship with an earnest effort by some members to trim fat from the state's $13 billion general fund budget for next year. It also revealed the challenges all lawmakers face when dealing with plummeting revenues: The GOP offered two plans, both relying on federal stimulus dollars, but one fails to specify how spending reductions would be maintained beyond the current year.

Most parents of young children and education advocates may have breathed a sigh of relief last week. The House of Delegates approved a budget that was relatively kind to K-12 public schools, and the Senate may be convinced to do the same. But in the next few days, the outlook could change substantially. That's because this Wednesday is the deadline for local governments to apply for a waiver of maintenance of effort - a state law requiring them to spend as much on public schools on a per pupil basis as they did the year before.

Legislative leaders, saddled with a new budget hole of $516 million and a deadline for balancing the budget, said yesterday that they might resort to additional furloughs for state workers and slashing aid to local governments that have largely been spared in previous rounds of spending cuts. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller and House Speaker Michael E. Busch laid out some budgetary options yesterday as the state's revenue forecasters officially reported that they now anticipate more than $1.1 billion less in tax revenue during the next 16 months.

OCEAN CITY -- Taking little comfort in Gov. Martin O'Malley's promises not to balance the state budget by shifting costs to cities and counties, local leaders are bracing for a fight to stop "doomsday" proposals that could saddle them with as much as $646 million in cuts. The executives, commissioners and other officials at the Maryland Association of Counties convention here say the prospect that the state will slough off hundreds of millions in costs for teacher pensions on local governments at the same time that it cuts grants for public safety and other services is the No. 1 topic of conversation.

Despite Gov. Martin O'Malley's pledge to spare local governments, legislative leaders say cuts in aid to counties and cities will likely have to be part of the state's effort to resolve its $1.5 billion budget shortfall. The governor, a former mayor, managed to avoid such cuts in the $213 million worth of proposed spending reductions he publicly unveiled yesterday, and he reiterated his desire to preserve the money the state passes on to local governments for education, public safety and other services.

In Annapolis, there are bills meant to become law and then there are bills intended to send a message. Legislation offered this session by two powerful chairwomen, Maggie L. McIntosh of the House Environmental Matters Committee and Sheila E. Hixson of Ways and Means, is the latter type, and this is its message: Counties with caps on property taxes ought to rethink that strategy. It's difficult to see their bill - which would give county councils the right to roll back voter-approved tax caps with a two-thirds vote - as anything else.

Any hope for easy agreement on Gov. William Donal Schaefer's proposed budget cuts vanished yesterday as local government leaders balked, saying it's unfair to cut $150 million in aid to Baltimore and the 23 counties.Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and the executives of the state's six most populous counties met with representatives of the Maryland Association of Counties yesterday morning and emerged with an agreement to fight Mr. Schaefer's proposal."We are not acquiescing to the $150 million cut at all. To do so would open us to major cuts in the future," said Parris Glendening, the Prince George's County Executive.

It's time for Gov. William Donald Schaefer and leaders of the Big Seven subdivisions to stop their blustering and start slashing $450 million from the state budget in a pragmatic and cooperative manner. Such massive cutbacks are going to hurt, no matter what programs are affected. And the pain will be felt by thousands of Maryland citizens, regardless of whether a state or a local program is impacted.Yet county leaders are taking the unyielding position that they won't go along with the governor's suggestion of $150 million in local aid reductions (plus another $24 million in indirect local cuts)

HERE'S THE best that can be said of Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s proposed state budget: It could have been worse. For months, it looked like it might. Apparently, improved tax revenues, political pressure and perhaps even common sense had an impact on the administration. But does this budget solve Maryland's structural deficit - the growing gap between what the state raises in tax revenue and what it's committed to spend in future years? It most assuredly does not. Even Mr. Ehrlich's supporters are bound to be disappointed - if only because the budget is so filled with one-time fixes.