Moore warns of difficult budget decisions

Governor Wes Moore (D) called for improvements to an expensive public education reform program in a speech to district leaders on Saturday and warned of further difficult budget decisions for the coming year.

Although he pledged his full support for the implementation of the Blueprint for Maryland's Future, Moore's speech to the Maryland Association of Counties offered few details about the decisions at hand or the design of the comprehensive education reform plan.

“But if legislative history has taught us anything, it is this: Laws with enormous potential still need to be refined after they are passed,” Moore said.

His comments on the Blueprint were nearly identical to those he made in an interview with Fox 45 nearly three weeks ago.

“I think people always want to hear details,” said Senate Minority Leader Sen. Stephen S. Hershey Jr. (R-Upper Shore). “Could we have heard more details? That's what we're talking about in December, right?”

The association hosts a three-day conference in December that often serves as a basis for local governments' priorities before the legislative session. Hershey said he expects “a more detailed conversation, a more detailed speech” then.

Moore's speech Saturday morning was his third to the association as governor. Each of those speeches has delivered sobering, if not bad, budget news, and Saturday's speech was no exception.

At the beginning of his 33-minute speech, Moore struck an optimistic tone, speaking of his focus on strengthening the state economy.

“Just yesterday – and I always look closely at these numbers – just yesterday I looked at new data,” Moore said. “The latest data showed that Maryland added over 6,100 new jobs in July and our unemployment rate remains one of the lowest in the country at 2.8%.”

But he soon struck a more serious tone and warned of the financial challenges ahead.

“I want to be clear: The next leg of this mission to address our financial challenges will be more difficult than the last, and right now everything is on the table,” Moore said.

He said Friday that he remains opposed to tax increases and that any such proposal would have to meet high standards, echoing comments made by Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) a day earlier.

In January, House budget analysts projected a structural budget deficit of $1 billion in the coming fiscal year. That would rise to $1.3 billion by fiscal year 2027, the final year of Moore's term, and $3 billion a year later. The state also faces a $3 billion gap between transportation requests for the next six years and expected Transportation Trust Fund revenues.

Moore noted that the state's financial situation has changed significantly since 2016, when work on the blueprint began.

“So a lot has changed since 2016. We've gotten through the pandemic, but we're still struggling with the long-term consequences of the pandemic,” Moore said.

“We also know that we now have a government that is committed to the success of this legislation, rather than one that wants to demonise it and bring it down,” he said. “We now know that we have a government that is willing to work with local authorities who believe in the goals of the Blueprint but don't feel like they are part of the process to make it happen.”

The state's financial situation weighed heavily on the gathering of district and municipal leaders on the East Coast.

Last month, Moore and the Board of Public Works cut $150 million just days into the current fiscal year. The July budget cuts were a first step toward addressing a nearly $1 billion deficit caused by higher-than-expected Medicaid contributions and state child care subsidies, both of which Moore said are priorities as part of an effort to improve the state's economy by getting people back to work.

But local politicians, some of whom had received bad news about transportation priorities days earlier, were eagerly awaiting to hear Moore address concerns about the state's expensive education reforms, known as the Blueprint for Maryland's Future.

Moore's speech came just hours after dozens of district officials met to discuss their concerns about the increasing financial pressures facing their respective districts as they all look for ways to cover their portion of the program.

“Given state revenues and ever-decreasing cash balances, events are going to become increasingly catastrophic unless we make course corrections along the way,” said Dorchester County Councilman Michael Dettmer (R).

Dettmer expressed skepticism that reforms will happen. He said he was concerned about the apparent “intransigence of the people who support this reform and who actually make the decisions that they can continue to support.”

“The Speaker of the House said in her opening remarks last session that there would be no discussion of this. So we have these diverging issues,” he said. “There doesn't seem to be any appetite for any change. And with every day that goes by that we don't start making changes and raising the stakes.”

Many of the local politicians in the room said they wanted the state to ease budget pressures by extending the timeline for cost recovery or giving them the flexibility they need to implement the parts of the plan that work best for them.