ANNAPOLIS | The Board of Public Works approved $50 million in spending reductions Wednesday to compensate for the repeal of a hugely unpopular sales tax that never took effect.
But the vote came after one board member criticized the process because he had just seen the list of cuts a couple of hours before voting on them.
Many of the reductions involved spending transfers that allow state agencies to avoid eliminating programs. But Comptroller Peter Franchot, a Democrat who sits on the board with Gov. Martin O’Malley, a Democrat, and Treasurer Nancy K. Kopp, said there were some real cuts that will have an impact.
Mr. Franchot, a former member of the House, pointed out that lawmakers spend 90 days every year anguishing over cuts of this magnitude. In this case, Mr. Franchot said, he only had several hours to consider the cuts.
“How can we possibly do anything other than just be a rubber stamp?” he asked.
Maryland Secretary of Budget and Management T. Eloise Foster said the process was the result of months of work by state agencies. She also said the O’Malley administration was in a difficult situation because the General Assembly directed him to make the cuts when lawmakers could have done so.
Mr. Franchot focused on a $2.5 million cut to the Sellinger Program, which provides state aid to non-public colleges and universities. He said the cut should be reversed because unlike many of the other spending reductions that were approved, the colleges didn’t have anywhere else to find the money.
He also questioned a total of $6 million in spending reductions for cancer research and local tobacco-cessation programs, a figure that includes a loss of federal matching money.
Mrs. Foster warned that even more spending reductions could be needed if the economy continues to falter. Tough fiscal times have prompted the O’Malley administration to reduce spending by $1.8 billion since he took office 18 months ago. The administration also says 736 state jobs have been eliminated.
The cuts Wednesday resulted from a scramble to address the state’s $1.7 billion budget deficit. As part of a special session in November that increased taxes by $1.4 billion, the Assembly extended the sales tax to computer services, without much discussion or chance for the industry to respond.
The industry, stung and outraged by the tax, hired an army of lobbyists and waged a sustained call for a repeal. The campaign forced the governor and lawmakers to find an alternative to fill a significant budget void.
In the end, Mr. O’Malley and the Assembly also decided to compensate for the other $150 million lost by the repeal by raising taxes on people with incomes of more than $1 million, a tax increase expected to raise $100 million a year. The other $50 million was taken out of $400 million in additional transportation funding that also was improved during the special session.
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