Spending Plan

Baltimore City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young plans to unveil a plan Monday that he says will prevent fire companies and recreation centers from closing, double funding for youth summer jobs and after-school programs and lessen the cost of planned cuts to health benefits for employees and retirees. “My 'Plan for a Better Baltimore' builds on the mayor's goal to grow Baltimore by 10,000 families over the next decade by investing in services that save lives and will help to attract and retain residents,” Young said in a statement.

The Howard County Council adopted a $923.5 million general fund spending plan Thursday that increases allocations for schools and police while not raising income or property taxes. The council voted 4-1 to approve the budget, roughly $2.7 million higher than the proposal made a month ago by County Executive Ken Ulman. The dissenting vote was cast by Councilman Greg Fox, the council's lone Republican, who criticized spending practices several times during the two-hour session. Fox wrapped up his remarks after the vote with a display of black, pointy wizard hats, each representing a new fund that he said appears suddenly, as if by magic, every year in the budget while some basic needs go unfunded.

Gov. Martin O'Malley's proposed budget was assailed on many fronts Wednesday as county executives, education advocates, Maryland hospitals and Republican leaders began making their case against the $36 billion spending plan. Some said cuts in payments to Medicaid providers would lead to higher medical bills for everyone else. Others argued that shifting $240 million in teacher pension costs to the counties would inevitably require cuts to community services - and schools. Even some leading Democrats in the General Assembly said the governor's proposal to increase income taxes on the top 20 percent of Maryland wage earners would hit people who don't earn enough to afford it. Republicans were more blunt.

The budget package proposed by Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz this week includes $5.6 million to finish a Perry Hall park that officials say has languished for years. Improvements to Gough Park, a 17-acre site at the intersection of the intersection of Honeygo Boulevard and East Joppa Road, will include a new gymnasium. The county bought the land in 2000, but "the land has sat idle," said County Councilman David Marks, a Republican who lives in Perry Hall. With continuing development in Perry Hall, Marks said the site will provide residents with a "green space in a growing community.

A Senate panel took the first bite out of Gov. Martin O'Malley's $13 billion general fund spending plan Monday night, voting to remove an estimated $150 million, mostly from small snips to hundreds of education and health programs. "We tried to do the appropriate thing," said Sen. Edward J. Kasemeyer, who chairs the Health, Education and Human Resources Subcommittee. "We could have taken more." Cuts included a $6.2 million reduction in funding for stem cell research. Senators also eliminated some health-related agency positions, but protected funds for a number of scholarship programs.

Republican state delegates charged yesterday that Gov. Parris N. Glendening's budget has so many problems that it should be rejected out of hand and sent back to him for reworking. "The budget is masterful in its deceit, and it violates the spirit of the constitution that requires a balanced budget," said Del. Alfred W. Redmer Jr., a Baltimore County Republican and House minority leader. "Let's send it back and get it right the first time." The Republican caucus members said that they would seek to exercise an obscure parliamentary rule to bring a bill directly out of committee and to a vote of the full House.

Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon has proposed borrowing $15 million, eliminating 17 vacant positions and scaling back a street-cleaning contract to compensate for a $26.5 million reduction in state aid. A city budget adopted by the Board of Estimates Wednesday leaves in place service cuts announced earlier by the mayor, such as shortening pool hours and closing child care and recreation centers. Dixon revised her spending plan after the General Assembly balanced the state budget partly by keeping $160 million in highway money that was intended to be distributed to local governments.

Yesterday, they joked in school offices that the cover on the superintendent's proposed $112.28 million spending plan for fiscal 1993 waspurple so it wouldn't show any bleeding.Unveiled to 35 citizens last night during a 75-minute public hearing at Spring Garden Elementary, Superintendent R. Edward Shilling's proposed budget calls for the 22,500-student district to spend $5.15 million more next year.Nearly all categories of spending, from administration to instructional salaries, will be increased -- anywhere from 1 to 12.7 percent.

Don't touch our stuff. That's the message dozens of Baltimore County residents sent to the County Council last night at a largely tranquil public hearing on a proposed $1.79 billion spending plan for the coming fiscal year. At a time when county coffers are brimming with a surplus expected to reach $85 million, County Executive C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger found something for everybody in the budget proposal he unveiled earlier this month. The plan includes money for everything from comfortable chairs for the lobbies of senior citizen centers to classroom listening devices for special-needs students to pay raises for teachers.

Baltimore's school board amended its original budget request yesterday, adding new programs for disruptive students.After shifting $1.7 million to school-safety programs, the board approved a $646 million spending plan that is 2.3 percent larger than this year's budget.The proposed budget for school year 1995-1996 now includes $900,000 for the creation of six "presuspension centers," $600,000 less than school administrators say they need to launch their programs for counseling and teaching students with behavior problems.

Amid the boasting typical of a governor's budget proposal, Gov. Martin O'Malley's new spending plan includes this peculiar claim to fame: The O'Malley administration has managed to effectively eliminate Maryland's structural budget deficit not just once but two times. This is a bit like bragging that you've married the same person twice - it suggests you've gotten to the right place in the end but glosses over some unpleasantness in the middle. The fiscal unpleasantness, in Mr. O'Malley's case, was particularly severe, and to be fair, not really his fault.

Baltimore County classrooms would have about 100 more teachers next school year under a budget proposal unveiled Tuesday by Superintendent Dallas Dance. In his first spending plan since taking the post, Dance presented a $1.3 billion operating budget to the county school board, saying a top priority will be managing growth in the school system of 107,000 students. Dance, who became superintendent this summer, is advocating spending about $4.7 million on additional teachers because of projected increases in student enrollment.

WEATHER Today's forecast calls for mostly cloudy skies in the Baltimore area, with a high near 94. There is a 70 percent chance of precipitation, most likely after 1 p.m. Friday night is expected to be cloudy, with a low around 72. TRAFFIC Check our traffic updates for this morning's issues as you plan your commute. FROM LAST NIGHT... Council discards cuts, approves mayor's budget plan : The Baltimore City Council reversed course Thursday, rejecting millions of dollars in budget cuts it had endorsed earlier in the week, and passing Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's original $2.3 billion spending plan.

City Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young had a radical thought: that the city's legislative body might actually live up to its role as a co-equal branch of government and exercise some influence in how Baltimore will spend $2.3 billion in the next fiscal year. Not every suggestion he made for what spending should be cut, what new funds should be used and what additional spending should be authorized was good. But his main priority — freeing up additional funds for recreation centers, after school programs and other youth services — was certainly valid.

MayorStephanie Rawlings-Blakesays the City Council is putting Baltimore residents at risk from increased crime, among other calamities, because of its preliminary decision to cut about $6 million from her $2.3 billion budget proposal. She has called the effort, led by Council PresidentBernard C. "Jack" Young, to divert some money into increased funding for recreation centers, youth employment and after school programs "unadvisable, unworkable and irresponsible. " Indeed, there is an opportunity cost associated with many of the council's proposed cuts - if not so dire a consequence as the mayor predicts.

Baltimore City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young plans to unveil a plan Monday that he says will prevent fire companies and recreation centers from closing, double funding for youth summer jobs and after-school programs and lessen the cost of planned cuts to health benefits for employees and retirees. “My 'Plan for a Better Baltimore' builds on the mayor's goal to grow Baltimore by 10,000 families over the next decade by investing in services that save lives and will help to attract and retain residents,” Young said in a statement.

ROCKVILLE -- The Montgomery County Council, often accused of being dominated by tax-and-spend liberals, did a little less of both in approving a $2.6 billion budget for fiscal year 2000.The council gave County Executive Douglas Duncan almost all the money he asked for in March, but trimmed $2.6 million from his proposed spending plan. It also passed along to taxpayers a series of small cuts totaling $7 million in the first year, and increasing to $24 million after three years.The fiscal spending plan is 7 percent above the current year, but 1 percent below a spending cap the council set last month.

Baltimore County Executive James T. Smith Jr. is expected to present a budget Monday that calls for pay raises for all county employees and maintains government services without raising taxes. The proposed spending plan for the fiscal year that begins in July is also expected to include contentious changes to employees' retirement benefits that are designed to cut costs. While not discussing specifics, Smith said yesterday that he hoped to present to the County Council "a well-balanced budget, meeting the community's needs and maintaining fiscal responsibility."

ON THE SITE... Tornado outbreak wasn't unusual for Maryland : How did Friday's storms compare to history? The 9 confirmed tornadoes weren't record-setting. Police investigate two early morning shootings : Two men were found shot, one near Central Park Heights and another in the Shipley Hill neighborhood. City Council president to unveil spending plan :  Plan said to prevent fire company and recreation center closings, double funding for youth summer jobs and after-school programs and lessen the cost of planned cuts to health benefits for employees and retirees.