ANNAPOLIS – Maryland lawmakers plan to call a special session to pass a budget deal reached in the final hours of the legislature Monday night after failing to approve a complete budget package before a midnight deadline.
The General Assembly passed an operating budget before it adjourned after 90 days — which it is constitutionally required to do — but failed to pass a new revenue package that would raise income taxes and shift half of the state’s teacher pension costs to the counties.
Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. and House Speaker Michael Busch have the authority to call a special session with a petition by the majority of both chambers, according to the state Department of Legislative Services. The session would allow lawmakers to pass the revenue portion of the budget, needed to avoid about $260 million in “doomsday” cuts to education, health care and law enforcement.
Or Gov. Martin O’Malley could call a special session to bring lawmakers back to Annapolis.
The General Assembly last held a special session in fall 2007, when lawmakers raised the state sales tax by a penny and passed a temporary millionaire’s tax.
O’Malley, visibly angered by the General Assembly’s failure to finish the state’s business on time, made no mention of calling a special session late Monday night or at a bill signing event Tuesday morning. Instead, he chastised lawmakers for failing to pass a budget that funds the state’s spending plan.
Miller, D-Calvert and Prince George’s, dismissed the governor’s criticism of the legislature, and said a special session is “just a minor bump in the road.”
“We’re going to have a special session, unless the governor wants these cuts to go into effect, and I don’t think he does,” he said.
Any of the bills left for dead by the General Assembly at midnight, including the governor’s proposed 6 percent sales tax for gasoline and a gambling bill to allow table games and a sixth Maryland casino, could be introduced in the session.
And some of O’Malley’s failed measures, such as a wind power bill that died in a Senate committee, could be reintroduced.
However, Miller said a special session shouldn’t last more than one or two days as long as lawmakers reach agreements on bills prior to the legislature’s return.
A quick session would drive down costs for the state, according to Karl Aro, executive director of the Department of Legislative Services. The longer a session lasts, the more staff lawmakers and state officials must hire. The 2007 special session, which lasted 21 days, cost an average of nearly $21,000 per day, he said.
