The Maryland House of Delegates on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved $500 million in cuts to next year?s budget ? except, as Republicans kept pointing out, they weren?t actually making at least half the cuts since there was no fiscal year 2009 budget submitted. That won?t happen till January.
The Budget Reconciliation Act passed 103 to 36, with two Democrats joining 34 Republicans in opposing the plan.
“It?s impossible to make a cut in a document that?s not before us,” said House Republican leader Anthony O?Donnell. Gov. Martin O?Malley, “could submit a budget that ignores every one of these cuts,” O?Donnell said.
Appropriations Chairman Norman Conway, D-Wicomico, said there were “statutory changes” in the budget reconciliation bill that produced $251 million in reductions in planned spending, and changed formulas for mandated aid.
“Governors do listen,” Conway said. In Maryland, legislators can only cut money from the governor?s spending plan, and not add or move items, but typically they cut hundreds of millions.
But even with the committee?s changes in statutory language for Thornton education aid, “we?re still actually increasing Thornton spending,” O?Donnell said.
At $1.3 billion next year, Thornton school funding is the primary cause of the so-called structural deficit. County officials have complained that O?Malley is changing the inflation adjustment for this aid, but every county will get at least 1 percent more than it did last year.
“We?re spending a dollar and 10 cents for every dollar that we bring in,” said Del. John Bohanan, chairman of the education appropriations subcommittee. “We?re going to find a way to balance the checkbook.”
The House repeatedly rejected Republican spending recommendations, including O?Donnell?s proposal to let O?Malley choose the cuts to make.
Minority Whip Christopher Shank, R-Washington County, proposed cutting 1,000 vacant positions after the committee cut 750 jobs. “These are not live bodies,” and the cuts would not apply to prisons, where there are staff shortages, Shank said.
