Faced with the proposed shift of teacher pension costs that until now have been part of the Maryland budget, Montgomery County officials are urging state lawmakers to split the burden between county government and the public school system as a way to ease the financial pain.

Gov. Martin O’Malley has said shifting half the cost of teachers’ pensions to the counties is a fair way to fill the state’s expected $1.1 billion budget gap in the fiscal 2013 budget. If local governments are responsible for the pension costs, they will have a greater incentive to keep salary costs low when negotiating with the teachers’ union, he said when he presented his budget plan in January.