Prince George’s County officials, whose multimillion-dollar budget gap grew last week when lawmakers passed Maryland’s fiscal 2013 budget, said the county’s shortfall will be even worse next year.
Maryland’s budget, which shifted the cost of teacher pension plans onto counties, added $4.15 million to the county’s already towering budget shortfall, forcing County Executive Rushern Baker to propose adjustments to the county’s budget Monday.
Baker’s first budget proposal closed the $126 million gap that Prince George’s faced before state lawmakers approved their budget last week.
Most of the extra $21.7 million in expenses the county must add stem from the shift of teacher pension costs to local jurisdictions — a move that would save the state hundreds of millions of dollars but cost Prince George’s $19.6 million in fiscal 2013.
The county’s budget officers proposed a variety of accounting adjustments to find $4.15 million in savings to close the gap, from delaying police and fire fighter recruiting classes to shifting expenses for debt services and county vehicles from the general fund to other sources with funding in reserve.
None of the latest round of adjustment proposals will affect county services, according to Tom Himler, the county’s deputy chief administrative officer for budget, administration and finance.
But county officials expect budget talks next spring to be worse than before now that they have used all the accounting tricks they can to close the gap, and with millions of dollars added each year to the county’s share of teacher pension costs.
“It’s getting very hard [to close the budget gap] without impacting services,” Himler said. “We’re getting down to the bare minimum at this point, and that’s the challenge we’re going to have in fiscal 2014.”
Any changes to Baker’s proposal would cause officials to go back and cut even more, according to Himler. For example, losing the $4.7 million raised by a 50-cent increase in the county’s recordation tax — a drop in the bucket in a $2.67 billion budget — could cause officials to slash funding from valuable agencies, he said.
The county also may have to come up with millions of dollars more to cover school construction costs, depending on how the state Board of Public Works votes Wednesday.
Prince George’s requested roughly $57 million from the state to supplement the $80 million the county is proposing to fund. But state officials have offered only $35 million.
The County Council must approve Baker’s budget or submit its own adjustments to the plan by June 1. The council is expected to announce terms of a budget agreement with Baker on Thursday.
