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Ehrlich repeats call for slots Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.gazette.net/200332/montgomerycty/state/171417-1.htmlhttp://www.gazette.net/200332/montgomerycty/state/171417-1.html
Ehrlich, board cut $208 million from state budget
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by Steven T. Dennis and Thomas Dennison
Staff Writers
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Aug. 6, 2003
ANNAPOLIS -- College students will pay higher tuition. Nearly 1,000 state positions and 500 more university positions will disappear. The poor will see new restrictions on their health care benefits. Scores of cuts will be felt across every state agency and every local government.
The Board of Public Works' unanimous but reluctant approval of Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s $208 million budget cut package last week after weeks of secret deliberations effectively sliced next year's budget gap nearly in half and handed the governor his biggest victory since he took office.
In the new era of divided government, the powerful board -- and especially the swing vote, Comptroller William Donald Schaefer (D) -- has emerged as the key power broker between the Democrat-controlled General Assembly and the Republican governor. The board has the authority to slice up to 25 percent of most agency budgets.
Ehrlich's package of cuts came in lighter than expected -- about 2 percent of the $10 billion general fund -- but not without pain.
Health care and human services programs were cut by nearly $100 million, and $60 million was shaved from higher education. Cuts to senior centers, after-school programs, the environment, juvenile services, mental health and public safety had advocates complaining and Democratic rivals firing partisan broadsides.
Meanwhile, next year's budget hole remains at more than $500 million, with Ehrlich again repeating his call for the legalization of slot machines and again saying lawmakers killed his plan this year "for no good reason -- none."
"The easy thing to do would be nothing. ... That's not what Nov. 5 was about," Ehrlich said. "The era of credit card government is over."
Schaefer, the often cranky former mayor of Baltimore who dealt with his own fiscal crisis as governor in the early 1990s, blamed the Democrats in the legislature and Ehrlich's Democratic predecessor, Parris N. Glendening, for spending the state into a deficit.
"Where were they when Glendening sent the budget over?" Schaefer asked about the General Assembly.
He blasted lawmakers for "sitting there saying 'I'm for education'" last year when they passed the $1.3 billion Thornton education funding formula without paying for it.
Schaefer told the governor that the Thornton plan should be cut in half, and suggested that he look to expand the sales tax base and raise the gasoline tax. The Gazette reported last week that top Ehrlich administration officials and House and Senate lawmakers have considered broadening the sales tax to services, though Ehrlich has said he is not actively considering it. Budget Secretary James C. "Chip" DiPaula Jr. said the governor is focused on cuts and gambling, not higher taxes.
The third member of the board, Treasurer Nancy K. Kopp (D), ultimately voted for the package rather than lodge a symbolic protest vote, but she ripped the governor for not working with the legislature or airing the cuts in public before he presented them to the board. Kopp singled out the $60 million in cuts to higher education as "shooting ourselves in the foot."
Ehrlich initially considered a far larger cut but balked at deeper cuts to services and mass firings. Only 82 of the 1,000 state positions eliminated are currently filled. Those workers will get a month's administrative leave.
Much of the savings will not result in cuts in services, but in who will pay for them. About half of the cuts from higher education will be made up by higher tuition, with increases as high as 21 percent.
Some of the $40 million cut in payments to hospitals for Medicaid patients could result in higher insurance premiums to pay for uncompensated care. And about $40 million is expected to come from attempts to shift costs to the federal government and accounting maneuvers.
Other programs facing cuts are Kathleen Kennedy Townsend's HotSpots anti-crime program, the Office of Smart Growth, anti-tobacco ads, cancer screenings, needle exchanges and treatment for drug addicts, vehicle purchases, repairs, tourism, park rangers, nutrient management, housing, nursing homes, child support and foster care. Medicaid cuts also will result in the loss of about $34 million in federal matching funds.
Most of the cuts made were small, but advocates argued that they are significant, coming on top of years of hiring and wage freezes that have shed thousands of workers from the state payroll.
House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Dist. 30) of Annapolis described the cuts "as a unilateral decision that came out of the administration," and criticized the governor for not working with the General Assembly.
"The issue here is you have the administration making substantial cuts that go to a three-member panel without any public advertisement or review by legislative leaders or staff," Busch said. "This should not be the norm."
Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Dist. 27) of Chesapeake Beach downplayed the governor's ability to circumvent the legislature through the Board of Public Works.
He said there would have been more of an outcry from lawmakers if the cuts had been more significant.
"I know that [Schaefer and Kopp] are upset with the cuts to higher education, but they both recognize that the cuts could have been much deeper and much more hurtful to state employees," Miller told The Gazette.
Miller, meanwhile, vowed that the $135 million corporate tax package vetoed by Ehrlich will become law next year "whether the governor likes it or not."
State Democratic Party Chairman Isiah Leggett accused Ehrlich of favoring corporate donors over the people of the state by vetoing the tax package while making the cuts, labeling it "trickle-down GOP economics.
"We didn't have to be in this situation," said Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan (D), a possible candidate for governor in 2006. "We didn't have to further attack higher education, but Gov. Ehrlich chose to do that because he unbalanced the balanced budget the General Assembly gave him." Duncan also criticized Ehrlich's earlier decision to raid $500 million from transportation funds to balance the budget.
"When you're anti-education and anti-transportation, what good are you?" he said.
Cuts aside, gambling and the $1.3 billion Thornton education plan continue to loom over the budget debate.
Ehrlich has promised to fully fund Thornton in next year's budget, but said after that, the education plan's future is uncertain without slots.
Meanwhile, Busch, who is strongly opposed to slots and killed the slots bill earlier this year, said he is "open for a dialogue" with Ehrlich and Miller but said the state needs a more stable revenue source than just slot machines.
"How many families do you know that base their budgets on gaming?" Busch said.
Staff Writers David Abrams and Eric Kelderman contributed to this report.
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