Year S Budget

Harford County would add 16 secondary teachers, spend more than $2 million to narrow the minority achievement gap and improve teachers' professional development in the proposed budget delivered yesterday to the county executive's office. The Board of Education is requesting $262.2 million for its operating budget for fiscal year 2003, an increase of $15.7 million, or 6.37 percent, over this year's budget. "It is by no means a needs-based budget." board member Thomas D. Hess said at yesterday's meeting, where the spending plan was approved.

NOW MARYLAND'S 188 state lawmakers can get to work. They've heard the governor list his priorities in the State of the State address and they have glanced at the 1,000-plus pages of budget detail describing how he wants to spend $21 billion of taxpayer money. One thing is clear: Lawmakers and the governor don't see eye to eye on this year's budget. Gov. Parris N. Glendening's blueprint is $209 million higher than the General Assembly's spending cap, yet budget analysts say it fails to include $350 million in ongoing state government expenses.

It's back to the drawing board for Crofton Civic Association Board members.They have called a special budget meeting in two weeks because of a bookkeeping error that probably will cause the community to dig further into reserve funds to cover its spending.Board President Gayle Sears first noted the error -- surplus funds that were mistakenly added to the budget pool as income -- when she reviewed the $916,440 proposed fiscal 2001 budget, which members voted last week to send to the community for approval.

Baltimore Budget Director Edward J. Gallagher cannot say it any simpler: City coffers are about to run dry.The 17-year budget director, who served through the administrations of the past three mayors, delivered the bad news this week during budget deliberations.City Council members are now looking at taxing everything from boat slips to cellular phones to make up a projected $153 million deficit over the next four years.Under state law, the city cannot end the year with a budget deficit. That means the council and Baltimore's next mayor will have to slash basic services or find new tax money, Gallagher said.

Gov. Parris N. Glendening's plan to launch a scholarship program for prospective teachers this year is likely to be delayed until fall 2000 by General Assembly budget-cutters.In the $17.7 billion budget bill it brought to the House floor last night, the Appropriations Committee approved a recommendation from its education subcommittee last week to trim this year's budget by $6 million by pushing back the starting date of the so-called HOPE scholarships for teachers.A subcommittee of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee has made the same cut in its proposed budget bill.

Hoping to take advantage of the governor's plans to reduce class size, Baltimore County schools Superintendent Anthony G. Marchione proposed last night adding 50 math and reading teachers to next year's budget.Marchione also added 23 special education teachers to his spending plan for 1999-2000, which means that his proposed budget has 168 more classroom positions than this year's budget.The proposals were made at the start of the school board's work session on the operating budget for next year.

With a record $1.05 billion to spread around for capital projects, Gov. Parris N. Glendening is proposing a $24 million expansion of the Senate office building -- part of a makeover long sought by some legislators.More than $700 million of Glendening's capital budget, released yesterday, is earmarked for public school construction, higher education and the environment, traditionally three areas that receive the lion's share of the state's annual investment in projects.Baltimore would receive about $185 million, the most of any jurisdiction, including $15.5 million for an African-American museum and $3 million for the zoo.Glendening's budget earmarks $10 million toward the University of Maryland Medical System's $218 million renovation project in downtown Baltimore, and he pledged yesterday to add $30 million overall to the state's $70 million commitment.

Ending a contentious, monthlong budget process, the Howard County school board approved funding allocations for next year yesterday.Noting that heavy public involvement in this year's budget process had a significant and positive effect on school funding, the board approved -- without changing allocations it determined last week -- a $199.07 million operating budget and a $30.65 million capital budget."I want to thank the public as well as our employees for the tremendous outpouring of support they showed during the budget process," said Stephen C. Bounds, chairman of the school board.

The Howard County school board approved yesterday an operating budget that calls for a nearly 10 percent increase over this year's budget, a rise some are saying is too hefty to pass muster when it goes before the Howard County Council in May.The budget of more than $278 million includes a 2 1/2 percent pay raise for teachers and a nearly 50 percent boost in funding for school athletics, returning the allocation to 1985 levels.School officials -- who said the budget boost is necessary after years of small increases that did not match inflation -- know they will have a fight on their hands to get the budget approved by the council.

Schools need proposed rise in budgetOn Jan. 7, Erin Texeira reported in an article on the Howard County school budget that school Superintendent Michael E. Hickey's proposed $271.5 million budget "calls for the largest dollar increase ever requested in a school budget."This is incorrect. As Dr. Hickey clearly stated in his presentation on Jan. 6, he has in the past often proposed budgets which exceeded this year's increase both in dollar terms and in percentage.From 1989 to 1991, Dr. Hickey's proposals were for increases of $20 million to $21 million, with percentage increases between 11.8 and 16.2.