Readers can be forgiven if they are a tad confused by different accounts of Gov. Martin O’Malley’s 2010 budget.
Is the budget lower than 2009 and does it actually represent real cuts, as some reports say? Or is it slightly higher or even about the same?
It all depends on which “budget” you’re talking about. There’s the “general fund” budget, and the “spending affordability” budget, the “baseline” budget and then the plain old budget in the budget book.
O’Malley is proposing to “cut” the first three “budgets” by more than 1 percent, yet the budget-book budget rises by 2.3 percent. There’s also the “capital budget,” mostly construction projects funded by bonds paid off with money in the other budgets.
This reporter has chosen to use the plain, old budget number found on page 7 of “Maryland Budget Highlights,” the Cliff Notes summary of the five-volume spending plan.
The budget O’Malley proposes comes in at $31.562 billion, up 2.3 percent from where this year’s budget will wind up after the governor makes more necessary cuts in this year’s budget to bring it into balance. It’s about the same number he started out requesting this past year, before revenue drops required spending reductions, so you can argue it is flat.
Aren’t they special The “general fund” budget is about half of state spending. It doesn’t include transportation.
The “spending affordability” budget is about two-thirds of state spending and represents those programs over which the state has the most control. In December, a legislative committee recommended that portion of the budget grow by 0.7 percent. O’Malley actually reduced it by 1.57 percent.
The most controversial budgeting tool is the “baseline” budget. That’s the projected budget that throws in inflation, standard salary increases and mandated spending formulas.
This is the budget that allows O’Malley to boast he’s cut the budget in the past two years by more than $2.2 billion, even though he actually allowed it to rise by more than $1 billion. If he had not asked the legislators to cut automatic spending formulas, eliminated vacant jobs and made other reductions, spending would have been $2.2 billion higher. It also would have a deficit and be unconstitutionally imbalanced.
Arguing with the baseline At a Jan. 13 briefing, Republicans got a little testy with Warren Deschenaux, the legislature’s fiscal guru, when he argued for the utility of the “baseline” budget.
“I think it’s disingenuous,” said House Republican leader Tony O’Donnell. “We are miscommunicating with the citizens of Maryland.”
“People don’t understand what baseline budgeting means,” complained Senate GOP leader Allan Kittleman, R-Howard and Carroll.
Deschenaux insisted the baseline budget is “helpful to understand the choices that have to be made” to balance the budget — what needs to be done “to deviate from what we’re doing now.”
Deschenaux’s deputy, John Rohrer, conceded, “You do wind up with some double counting.” This happens when lawmakers cut a spending mandate one year, but leave the formula on the books. If they want to keep funding at the same level in the next budget, they have to “cut” the spending mandate again.
Music festival
At the news conference on the state budget, a cell phone with an unusual ring tone stopped O’Malley in midsentence. Laughing after he lost his train of thought, the governor told an anecdote about the first meeting of the Council for New Americans he just created. A similar cell phone went off, and the ring tone had an ethnic tune. He imagined all the cell phones in the room going off with a melange of tones. “We could have had an international music festival,” O’Malley said.
Calling on the coach
Del. Shawn Tarrant, D-Baltimore, took to the rostrum of the House of Delegates on Thursday to offer the prayer. He referred to Speaker Michael Busch, standing next to him with head bowed, as “Coach Speaker.”
“We need a coach,” Tarrant petitioned the Almighty as Busch, a former high school football coach, smiled bemusedly. “We’re in the fourth quarter, and we’re down by 7,” Tarrant said, referring to the state budget woes. “We need a two-point conversion.”
