NEWS
June 17, 2009
Towson anti-crime rally scheduled for Friday 2 The Baltimore County Police Department and the Towson Citizens on Patrol will host a Rally Against Crime at 6 p.m. Friday on Allegheny Avenue between the traffic circle and Washington Avenue. The event will begin with a ceremony to recognize the people and organizations who have worked to keep the area safe. Event-goers will have the opportunity to board a firetruck, sit in a race car and a police car, and watch a demonstration by the department's police dog unit.
NEWS
By Andrew A. Green | December 14, 2007
Maryland's tax collections are coming in on target this year, according to newly released state figures, but Board of Revenue Estimates members cautioned that the economic picture remains uncertain. The latest estimates are in line with those that state lawmakers used as the basis for tax increases and recommended cuts in future spending they enacted during last month's special session, meaning that barring an economic slowdown or huge new spending programs, the state will not likely return to the days of projected deficits anytime soon.
NEWS
October 16, 2007
Gov. Martin O'Malley has put much on the line with his decision to call the General Assembly into special session on Oct. 29. His purpose is not only to solve next year's $1.7 billion budget deficit but also to finally resolve the state's ongoing structural deficit - the growing gap between spending and tax collections - that has existed since the $1.3 billion Thornton aid to education plan was adopted in 2002 without a funding source. We opposed a special session. Our preference would have been for such a complex proposal to undergo the fullest possible review and for public involvement to be maximized during a 90-day regular session with a budget in hand instead of a shorter-term whirlwind without one. But the governor's argument that waiting until January would put the state $500 million deeper in the hole has some merit as well.
NEWS
September 17, 2007
By most measures, Ocean City had a respectable summer for tourism. Tax collections were up slightly and so was sewage discharge (the so-called demoflush measurement of residential outflow being one of the more reliable barometers). Thanks to a strong August, town officials estimate that 4 million people visited the resort between Memorial Day and Labor Day. But Ocean City business leaders tell a different story. The number of summer visitors has stayed mostly static over the past decade and is down in the long term, having peaked at about 4.5 million in the early 1990s.
NEWS
By Andrew A. Green | February 21, 2007
New state revenue estimates show an uptick in tax collections in January, good news for Maryland officials who had feared that lackluster receipts would force them to deeply cut this year's budget and rethink the spending plan now under debate in Annapolis. Estimates of income, sales and other taxes released by the Bureau of Revenue Estimates this week show state revenues are up by about 2.9 percent for the period running from July through January. The growth rate for July through December had been a percentage point lower, a trend that would have blown a $100 million hole in the current budget if it had kept up for the rest of the fiscal year.
NEWS
By Larry Carson | October 25, 2006
Howard County's surplus for the fiscal year that ended June 30 is a record $38 million, county officials announced yesterday, swelled by higher-than-expected income, property and real estate tax collections. County Executive James N. Robey said that the bulk of the surplus -- $30 million -- should go to begin paying a $477 million debt on future retiree health benefits under a change in federal accounting standards that is affecting every state and local government in the United States.
NEWS
By David Nitkin | August 26, 2005
As the regional economy chugs forward, the state of Maryland finished the past budget year with a $1.2 billion surplus, according to figures released by Comptroller William Donald Schaefer yesterday. The final accounting for the 2005 fiscal year, which ended June 30, provides the governor and state lawmakers with the best news they've had since taking office in January 2003. At the time, a financial downturn prompted a state hiring freeze and some program cuts. Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s office reaffirmed yesterday that he hoped to return some money to Marylanders through a tax reduction.
NEWS
By David Nitkin | May 17, 2003
Maryland continues to collect less sales and income tax revenues than expected, raising the possibility that the state will end the budget year with a deficit for the first time since 1992. The dour revenue outlook likely will mean that Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. will cut even deeper into the coming fiscal year's budget, which takes effect on July 1. The administration is already preparing for up to $500 million in reductions to be made in the next several weeks, the first phase in closing a projected $1 billion gap between receipts and expenses.
NEWS
By David Nitkin | August 30, 2002
Maryland finished its last budget year with a smaller surplus than projected because of an anemic stock market that suppressed income tax collections, creating a bigger-than-expected financial problem for the next governor, according to figures released yesterday. Figures from the state comptroller's office show that Gov. Parris N. Glendening or his successor must cut the current state budget, which took effect July 1, because the surplus from the previous year was less than expected. Glendening and state lawmakers planned to use $413 million in leftover funds from the 2002 fiscal year, which ended June 30, to balance the current year's budget.
NEWS
By Jay Hancock | May 15, 2002
TOP BOSSES and major shareholders at the late, lame Global Crossing contributed at least $300 million in taxes to the federal budget surplus in 2000, one can deduce from stock-sale disclosures and an awareness of the capital-gains tax rate. Honchos at Internet auctioneer eBay probably paid at least $100 million in capital gains taxes that year. And, all by himself, Microsoft's Bill Gates paid in the neighborhood of $1 billion in stock-sale-related taxes in 2000. Many things about the economy in recent years were not normal.