Gov. Martin O?Malley announced a total of $280 million in budget cuts Tuesday, but he acknowledged this was just “one of the first steps. The real pain is going to come.”
The Board of Public Works, made up of O?Malley, Comptroller Peter Franchot and Treasurer Nancy Kopp, is scheduled to vote on the reductions today. They have the authority to reduce state spending without legislative approval.
This was the start of filling a likely $1.4 billion deficit for fiscal 2009. The major cuts came from the Health Department and its Medicaid program, about $46 million; human resources and its foster care and welfare, $14 million; and the university system, $12 million. Another $84 million came from “reversions,” money that was budgeted this year and next, but was not going to be spent.
“We need to restrain spending,” O?Malley said.
Some state employees already were protesting the budget reductions. A total of 147 positions will be eliminated ? including the jobs of 17 workers and 35 contractual employees. More than 1,000 positions among the state work force of 80,000 are still vacant. In all, only $128 million in state-funded spending ? less than 1 percent of the $14 billion general-fund spending.
Senate Republican Leader David Brinkley, Frederick-Carroll, called it “a drop in the bucket. In the scope of a $30 billion budget this is not a whole heck of a lot.”
“Some of it is the easy fruit to pick, but there is still along way to go,” Brinkley said.
“They?re a good start,” said Senate President Thomas Mike Miller, D-Calvert, but with 40 percent of the state budget going to local aid, “he?s got to go back to the counties” for more reductions.
O?Malley said the administration avoided cuts in local aid in this first round of reductions, and he told some local officials two weeks ago that he would try to hold them harmless.
In making such promises, “I think he misspoke,” Miller said, as the governor did in promising to avoid tuition increases. Those are “laudable goals, but in my opinion not attainable,” he said.
During last year?s campaign, Franchot complained about cuts made in the Ehrlich years, but he?s “keeping an open mind,” said Joe Shapiro, the comptroller?s spokesman.
O’MALLEY?S BUDGET CUTS
Health and Mental Hygiene: $46 million
» Continue limits on hospital stays: $17 million
» Cut nursing home rates (down 1.2 percent): $4.3 million
» Cut health care provider reimbursements: $11 million
Corrections: $10 million
» Closed House of Correction: $8 million
» Raise per diems for federal prisoners: $2 million
Human Resources: $14 million
» Decline in foster care caseload: $2 million
» Decline in cases for cash assistance: $3.1 million.
» Replace state with federal funds: $3.1 million
University System: $12 million (regents will make cuts)
Education Department: $6.3 million
Higher Education Commission: $9 million
» Cut aid to private colleges: $2.5 million (4 percent)
» Reduce scholarship aid by unspent amount: $6 million
