The Senate budget committee Friday finalized $300 million in spending reductions and transfers in Gov. Martin O?Malley?s $31 billion spending plan for next year. The panel cut the new Chesapeake Bay 2010 Trust Fund in half to $25 million, disappointing environmentalists.
“This makes up for the revenue write down” on Thursday, said Warren Deschenaux, the legislature?s top budget expert. Expected revenues for next year were projected to be $258 million lower. “It leaves us where the governor started” when he submitted the budget seven weeks ago, Deschenaux said.
There still is a continuing $300 million structural deficit that will not be cured until slot machine revenues start coming in two years from now ? if the November referendum passes.
Much of the $300 million in cuts and transfers approved Friday comes from delaying payments, such as a $38 million delay in funding future retiree benefits. Or they come from moving money from special funds into the general fund, such as the $60 million from the State Police Helicopter Fund that will go to pay for ongoing state expenses.
“Most of the big things are multiyear savings,” said Deschenaux, such as the payments delayed on the InterCounty Connector highway, which amount to $100 million over two years.
“It?s obvious that the special session did not take care of the state?s bills,” said Senate Republican Leader David Brinkley, who serves on the budget panel. “There is the realization that some of the programs that they used to obtain the votes in the special session [for tax hikes] won?t be funded and can?t be funded.”
“Once again the bay is being compromised,” said Kim Coble, Maryland director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. “Reducing state spending is important, but so is meeting commitments that the state has made to reduce pollution.”
The full Senate Budget and Taxation Committee came up with about $200 million in reductions Friday, in addition to $100 million in spending that subcommittees trimmed earlier in the week.
“The state?s in a deep pickle, and it?s not apparent that it?s going to be getting any better,” Brinkley said.
