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Faced with a growing student population and aging schools, the state legislature approved yesterday $80 million for public school construction, one of the largest budgets since the 1970s.The funds for schools -- $20 million more than the amount requested by Gov. William Donald Schaefer -- will help ease an "enormous backlog," said Delegate Timothy F. Maloney, D-Prince George's County.State officials will decide later this month what school projects will be funded with the extra money.The school funding was part of the $350 million capital budget consisting of more than 140 projects ranging from prisons and hospitals to wastewater treatment plants, museums and parkland.

Proclaiming success in controlling patient costs, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Maryland yesterday reported a profit of $15.9 million for the third quarter of 1994, a 279 percent increase over the same period last year.Revenues for the period that ended Sept. 30 were $463 million, a 5.7 percent decrease that company officials attribute partly to rate cuts this summer. "It's something we're certainly focusing on," said Controller Gary C. Baker.Profits for the third quarter included $12.2 million from the company's traditional indemnity insurance business and $3.7 million from its five HMOs.

The Orioles avoided arbitration today with newly acquired Glenn Davis, signing him to a club record $3.275 million contract for 1991.Davis made $1.985 million last year and had asked for $3.65 million, while the Orioles offered $2.9 million. The figures represented the highest ever submitted for arbitration by a team and a player. Davis' salary puts him ahead of Cal Ripken, who will draw $2.3 million in the last year of his contract.

Aether Systems Inc. said yesterday that it posted a sixfold increase in revenue for the fourth quarter and a narrower loss than expected. Analysts reacted positively to the earnings report from the Owings Mills provider of wireless data products and services. Aether reported a net operating loss of $35.2 million, or 90 cents a share for the quarter that ended Dec. 31, compared with a loss of $4.6 million, or 18 cents a share, in the fourth quarter of 1999, excluding special items. Special items included the amortization of intangibles and other noncash items relating to acquisitions, the company's share of losses in joint ventures and non-cash expenses relating to options and warrants.

Consumers spent $586.7 million on taxable entertainment in Maryland during fiscal year 2000 - a 12 percent increase over the previous year - state Comptroller William Donald Schaefer announced yesterday. "It comes as no surprise that consumer confidence has been high this year, given the red-hot economy we've been enjoying," Schaefer said. Maryland's 23 counties, 160 incorporated cities and towns and the Maryland Stadium Authority will receive individual payments totaling $15.5 million for their share of tax receipts collected for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2000, which ended June 30. The current distribution is 14.7 percent higher than the $13.5 million returned to local governments during the fourth quarter of the previous fiscal year.

Although the $55 million increase requested by county schools is by far the largest in Baltimore County government, other departments are asking for millions more too, making the recent election mandate to cut taxes and spending doubly hard to satisfy this recession year.The major county departments have preliminary requests in for nearly $90 million more total than their current budgets, which end June 30. More increase requests may follow.County budget officers, meanwhile, project possibly $35 million more in revenue to be divided among county departments next year and virtually no increase the year after unless new taxes are found.

Storage USA Inc. yesterday announced it raised $135.2 million through a secondary stock offering, a move designed to finance the acquisition of 29 new miniwarehouse facilities and provide working capital.The Columbia-based real estate investment trust, which went public in March with a $119.6 million initial offering, sold 5.2 million new shares of common stock at $26 a share, a 20 percent increase from its IPO price."The new offering makes us more liquid, and answers the needs of institutional investors who wanted more shares," said Thomas E. Robinson, the company's president and chief operating officer.

Carrollton Bank is seeking more than $3 million in judgments against Steve Eisner and Sara Eisner in connection with loans the couple guaranteed for the failed advertising agency Eisner Communications Inc. Two separate complaints filed in Baltimore Circuit Court this week ask for unpaid balances of $1.9 million and $1.2 million, along with interest, collection costs and attorney's fees of close to a half-million dollars. Neither the Eisners nor an attorney for Carrollton Bank could be reached yesterday.

Even a mediocre NFL franchise like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers could be worth more than $200 million if it were playing in a new stadium in Baltimore, easily exceeding its value in Tampa by tens of millions of dollars, according to financial estimates.Orioles managing partner Peter Angelos has said he may be willing to pay up to $200 million for the Bucs -- a mind-boggling figure for a franchise with one of the worst win-loss records and fan bases in sports.But financial analysts who help investors evaluate franchise values say the figure not only is reasonable, but also could go higher.

Guilford Pharmaceuticals Inc. reported yesterday a $2 million loss for the fourth quarter, but completed a deal to develop a treatment for cocaine addiction.The nascent Baltimore-based biotechnology company is joining with the Abell Foundation, a private philanthropy, to create GELL Pharmaceuticals Inc., which will work to develop the drug treatment.The Abell Foundation in Baltimore has agreed to invest $2.5 million in GELL and will own 80 percent of the company; Guilford will own the remainder and provide the research aimed at tackling an addiction that afflicts more than 1 million Americans.