Every day hope continues to grow for a federal stimulus package to help the Maryland budget, with state officials now predicting the state will get almost $4 billion in aid over the next two years if Congress approves. The House of Representatives is expected to vote on the package today, and Gov. Martin O’Malley urged Maryland citizens to call their representatives to support the plan.
“We have to work hard to make sure the Recovery and Reinvestment Act passes,” O’Malley said Tuesday.
The governor said the proposed aid in the current fiscal year was sufficient enough that he was postponing $56 million in reductions to local aid for schools and health he had planned to ask for at today’s Board of Public Works meeting.
The largest cuts to schools, community colleges and health would have come from Montgomery County ($14 million), Prince George’s County ($11.5 million) and Baltimore City ($8.3 million), further hurting jurisdictions that were already trying to deal with deficits produced by falling revenues.
O’Malley also said he hoped the $1.1 billion in education aid over the next three budgets should more than make up for any reductions he was proposing next year for Baltimore. City officials and legislators had strongly protested the $21 million reduction in what city schools were expecting next year.
According to estimates by state budgeters based on information from the U.S. House Appropriations Committee, Baltimore will get $48 million next year in new Title I school aid for the disadvantaged and for special education, the highest amount in the state.
This “greatly offsets” his proposed 2 percent reduction, O’Malley said, but city officials weren’t satisfied.
Baltimore schools Chief Executive Officer Andres Alonso said the stimulus would not solve the problem, because the problem is in the funding formulas. “The current funding formula is going to force me to be in the back of the line with a tin cup every year,” Alonso said.
Del. Curt Anderson, chairman of the city delegation in the state House of Delegates, said, “The only thing for certain right now is that he has called off the cuts that he was apparently going to announce [today] in education.” City lawmakers have a meeting scheduled with O’Malley today.
“I’m hoping to get the money from the economic stimulus when and if it arrives,” Anderson said. “We can’t be certain when that’s going to be and how much it’s going to be.”
Legislators want city schools to continue to improve, he said. “There have been promises made in education over the years that frankly didn’t come.”
Deferred cuts in local aid
Gov. Martin O’Malley is deferring cuts in local aid for schools, community colleges and health he had planned to make today. Here are the amounts by county in order of magnitude.
Prince George’s $14 million
Montgomery $11.5 million
Baltimore City $8.3 million
Anne Arundel $4.5 million
Baltimore County $4.2 million
Howard $2.3 million
Carroll $1.3 million
Harford $876,000
Staff Writer Mike Silvestri contributed to this story.
