Gov. Martin O’Malley and the Board of Public Works stripped $297 million Wednesday from Maryland’s budget, slashing 830 jobs, plus state payments to local jails, community colleges and more while his budget secretary told departments to prepare additional cuts.
Last month, O’Malley directed the Maryland Department of Budget and Management to cut spending in all state agencies up to 5 percent, after he learned the state would have a revenue shortfall of $432 million this year.
On Wednesday, state Budget Secretary Eloise Foster said she would need agencies to recommend an additional 3 percent in cuts beyond what O’Malley had already announced that day.
Still on the chopping block are six-day furloughs for state workers that still must be discussed with unions, O’Malley said. Documents circulated last week indicate that O’Malley may also cut in half a special cost-of-living allowance for Montgomery and Prince George’s school systems, which would eliminate millions in aid for both districts.
Maryland’s Health and Human Services Department was the hardest hit Wednesday, losing $85 million from its budget. People with disabilities and nonprofit groups protested the cuts, which included a $20.7 million reduction to a recent increase in what the state pays health care providers. Protesters worried that reductions in pay increases would make it even more difficult for people with disabilities to find care providers.
“Sometimes in the journey of progress, it’s three steps up and one step back,” O’Malley told the protesters. “Bear with us. We’re going to get through this with as little pain as possible all around. We’re going to be doing better than we have in the past.”
Neil Bergsman, director of the Maryland Budget and Tax Policy Institute, said “By and large, the governor did a good job of trying to maintain the safety net,” adding that O’Malley refrained from cutting substance abuse programs that were on original lists of recommended reductions.
Cuts to counties were not huge: The governor reduced state payments to local jails for housing inmates by 25 percent and chopped in half an earlier increase in state money for community colleges, but Montgomery County Council President Mike Knapp said the county would lose only $1 million or $2 million from each of those cuts.
In Montgomery County, where corrections department officials recently opened up the last section of cells in local correctional facilities.
“There are not huge numbers in our $4 billion budget, but if you take a way a couple here, a couple there, it does eat into what we can do,” Knapp said.
Examiner Staff Writer Len Lazarick contributed to this report.
