Mar 25, 2009 4:55 pm US/Eastern
Md. House Of Delegates Takes Up Budget Bill
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) ―
The Maryland House of Delegates fought off amendments to budget legislation Wednesday that would have restored a $60 million cut to local governments and eroded a proposed in-state tuition freeze.
The House gave preliminary approval to the $13.9 billion operating budget with few changes. Together with a separate budget reconciliation bill, the two pieces of legislation contain a total of roughly $825 million in spending reductions.
"These were hard decisions that affected state employees, agencies, entitlement programs and local aid," said Delegate Norman Conway, D-Wicomico, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee.
The House could take a final vote on the bill Friday. Then, the Senate will go to work on the budget.
The House measure would leave a cash balance of $51 million in case the economy continues to worsen. Tough as it was to reach that, the cash balance falls way short of the $200 million to $250 million budget cushion Conway said he was aiming for in late January.
The $60 million cut to the local "piggyback" tax was a tough one for some lawmakers, particularly some from Montgomery County, which will lose about $12 million. Maryland is one of the few states that enables counties to take up to 3.2 percent in income tax from taxpayers through the state's income tax.
Delegate Charles Barkley, D-Montgomery, said the reduction would cause further harm to counties that already are suffering from the economic downturn. He said Montgomery and Prince George's counties have laid off 700 people in budget proposals from last week.
"If we do this extra $60 million, we're not going to do layoffs at the state, but we're going to force the counties to lay off additional people," Barkley said.
Delegate John Bohanan, D-St. Mary's, said without the tough choice "it blows a $60 million hole in our budget." He also pointed out that the state made a similar decision in the early 1990s when the state was facing serious budget problems.
"It was done for one reason and that was to make it fair to all the counties involved," Bohanan said, noting lawmakers worked for days to find alternatives.
The House rejected Barkley's amendment 42-91. County governments and Baltimore city also are taking a $102 million cut in state aid for road maintenance, snow removal and road paving.
Maintaining the tuition freeze for a fourth consecutive year has been a top priority of Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley.
But Delegate Anthony O'Donnell, R-Calvert, wanted to direct half of the $16 million cost back to the state's operating budget and 25 percent to community colleges, keeping the other 25 percent to offset the 4 percent tuition increase that would result without the freeze. O'Donnell's amendment failed 29-100.
The House also rejected an amendment from Delegate Brian Feldman, D-Montgomery, that would have shifted $2 million away from $18.4 million set aside for stem cell research to increase a tax credit from $4 million to $6 million for people who invest in biotechnology. The amendment failed 57-73.
The House also turned away a proposal to cut about $5 million to create a paper ballot voting system at the Maryland State Board of Elections.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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