Spending Plan

The Annapolis City Council will have a public hearing tonight on Mayor Alfred A. Hopkins' proposed $36.8 million fiscal 1992 budget.Hopkins' spending plan is up 3.4 percent from this year's $35.6 million budget.The tax rate -- $1.80 per $100 of assessed value -- would remain the same under the proposal. Some permit and license fees and other charges would increase under the plan, however.The plan includes $100,000 for a twice-monthly citywide curbside recycling program, $145,000 for five new police officers and $86,000 for five police communications officers.

The Baltimore County Council unanimously approved Thursday the spending plan proposed by County Executive Kevin Kamenetz for the coming fiscal year, a $1.65 billion operating budget that includes no furloughs, layoffs or tax increases. The lean budget, which goes into effect in July, relies heavily on savings from retirements, attrition and reorganizations in county agencies. The county will have 7 percent fewer employees than in the previous year. The council emphasized that local government would have less to work with as employees try to deliver the same level of services.

Upgrades to the MARC system will take longer. Projects to get highways ready for military base expansions will be pushed back. Improvements along U.S. 29 in Howard County will be delayed. These are among the $1.1 billion in hard choices Maryland officials announced yesterday as they cut back transportation spending plans over the next six years to account for drops in state revenues related to high gas prices and a slowing economy. "With gas up to $4 a gallon from $2 a gallon, everybody started driving less," said Gov. Martin O'Malley, saying revenues from gasoline taxes have fallen off as a result.

THE STATE budget released last week by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. -- four red-jacketed volumes that stack nearly 5 inches high -- is anything but a dry compendium of numbers. The budget sets the governor's vision and priorities for his first year, which amount to limited new spending on juvenile services and health care, and temporarily filling an approximately $1.2 billion budget gap as a broader review of government operations gets under way. But the spending plan also offers an intriguing glimpse into the strategic thinking of the new governor and his staff.

A $9.9 million state grant and a wage freeze helped the city to avoid layoffs and cuts in services, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke said today as next year's $2.07 billion billion budget was presented to the Board of Estimates.The mayor thanked city employee unions for agreeing to the wage freeze, which saved $38.1 million. Schmoke said the state takeover of the City Jail "will help us tremendously down the road.""Now we need to work with the General Assembly as it looks at restructuring the state's tax system," he said.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The tobacco state of Virginia is raising cigarette taxes tenfold. Illinois will make do with a work force smaller than it had in 1983. And New Jersey will force its millionaires to share more of their wealth with the state. Virtually every state facing a major budget shortfall this year has made painful policy choices. Except California. A year ago, as economic recession gripped the nation, state governments across the country were coping with deficits, shortfalls and financial angst of all kinds.

The Carroll County commissioners are proposing smaller class sizes and more computers in the $269.9 million spending plan they will promote at a public hearing this evening. School spending would consume about half of the county budget for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. The Board of Education had requested $9 million in new funding, more than the total of new revenue available to the county. "To meet the school system's request, we would actually have to cut funding for everything else and raise taxes," said Commissioner Julia Walsh Gouge.

Forced to balance requests ranging from $5,000 for an electrocardiograph machine to $34.4 million for a new Westminster high school, the Carroll County commissioners are drafting a budget that would neither change the tax rate nor dramatically increase funding for education, law enforcement or emergency services. "We simply will not be able to meet everyone's expectations," county budget director Steven D. Powell has said during discussions about the budget for fiscal year 2001, which begins July 1. The Board of Education alone is requesting $9 million in new funding, an increase larger than all new revenue available to the county.

The Maryland Senate voted overwhelmingly yesterday to maintain the state's 2 percent income tax cut as it gave tentative approval to a $21.6 billion spending plan for next year. As part of the budget, senators agreed to set aside up to $4.5 million to increase prize money at state horse tracks - a move Sen. Thomas L. Bromwell hopes will give a boost to the struggling racing industry. "This isn't for the track owners, it's for the purses," said the Baltimore County Democrat, whose plan taps bettors' money the state has collected for yet-to-be-started track improvements.

The Senate gave tentative approval last night to a $21 billion state budget for next year - a spending plan that cuts significantly into Gov. Parris N. Glendening's ambitious initiative to improve mass transit service. As it deliberated on the budget, the Senate approved spending $5 million for textbooks for students in private and parochial schools, setting up a showdown with the House of Delegates, which has rejected the funding. Last night's votes came amid grumbling from Republicans and some Democrats that Glendening's proposed budget is too generous to the governor's pet projects, but fails to adequately fund some basic governmental functions such as Medicaid and the state's mental health program.