Doomsday Budget Update

Members of the Save Our State coalition recently unveiled the “Doomsday Budget Clock,” that counts down the days, hours and minutes until automatic cuts take effect, hurting schools, local police, colleges, and much more. It’s now ticked down to 67 days.

In fact, the need to fix the budget is more urgent than that. Most of Maryland’s local governments need to have their budgets in place by June 1st – 37 days away. Also by that date, the state Board of Public Works will need to approve $150 million in additional state agency cuts. And schools need to know how many teachers and staff they can afford next year before this school year concludes.

This morning, Governor Martin O’Malley, Senate President Mike Miller and House of Delegates Speaker Mike Busch met to discuss the timing and subject matter of a special session. According to press reports, nothing was decided, but there was discussion of scheduling two special sessions – one in May to fix the budget, and another in the summer to consider expansion of gaming.

MBTPI has no position on the Prince George’s casino proposal or table games at the other gaming sites. It’s critical, though, that the legislature meet promptly in special session, fix the budget, restore the “doomsday” cuts, and enact a adequate, sustainable, and fair revenue package.

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Right after the session, MBTPI prepared a description of the “doomsday budget” cuts as included in the budget bill passed by the legislature just prior to the end of the 90-day regular session.

In a Friday-the 13th letter to state agency heads, state budget secretary T. Eloise Foster stated that “if efforts to resolve the shortfall through a special session are unsuccessful, the Governor will need to seek Board of Public Works approval of approximately $150 million of reductions [to state agency budgets] to implement the doomsday cuts and bring the budget into balance.”

MBTPI has updated our report on doomsday budget cuts to reflect this information.