ANNAPOLIS – Maryland’s leaders plan to bring state lawmakers back to Annapolis in less than two weeks to pass a budget that avoids more than $500 million in spending cuts.
Gov. Martin O’Malley, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. and House Speaker Michael Busch have agreed to call a special session the week of May 14, according to O’Malley spokeswoman Raquel Guillory.
The Democrats are trying to avoid implementing the state’s most conservative budget in recent memory — a “doomsday” proposal that eliminates millions of dollars in spending for education and law enforcement that was passed after the legislature’s historic failure to bring a negotiated budget plan to a vote after 90 days in session.
Busch, D-Anne Arundel, said lawmakers must start budget negotiations with the agreement reached by House and Senate negotiators in the eleventh hour of the General Assembly but that they failed to pass by the time it adjourned last month.
“It’s appropriate that we come to an agreement on what everyone has basically already signed off on,” he said. “There was a 90-day negotiation of the budget, and I think we’re in a place where certainly this has to be initiated and hopefully is passed as it was intended to do at the end of the session.”
But Senate lawmakers are looking to change the agreement in an effort to raise more revenue, according to a State House aide.
Miller, D-Calvert and Prince George’s, has floated a plan to raise income taxes on all Marylanders earning more than $75,000. This plan that would target almost 40 percent of Montgomery County residents.
The Senate Democratic caucus met with the governor’s staff Wednesday morning in an effort to reach a consensus on terms of a special session. Busch said House leaders are scheduled to do the same on Thursday.
Senators can at least agree that the last-minute agreement reached by budget conferees is the right place to restart negotiations, according to Sen. Richard Madaleno, D-Montgomery.
“The starting point is going to be the conference committee reports and agreements from the last night,” he said. “Even though that may not be what I would hope, if it were just up to me what the outcome would be, but that’s the starting point.”
Lawmakers have been instructed to keep their schedules open the week of May 14, though both Busch and Miller said they hope the special session, which costs about $25,000 a day, will take only a day or two.
