Latest news with #SenateBudgetandTaxationCommittee
Yahoo
22-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Senate panel's vote on Blueprint bill straddles House, administration versions
Senate Budget and Taxation Committee voted Friday for amendments to the Blueprint for Maryland's Future that splits the difference between House and administration versions. (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters) A Senate committee advanced parts of Maryland's sweeping education reform plan Friday, splitting the difference between versions of the bill advanced by the House and the Moore administration and setting up a showdown in the waning days of the legislature. The Senate Budget and Taxation Committee approved a four-year pause in the start of funding for teacher 'collaborative time' — something the administration supports — but also voted to keep funding for community schools — something the House insisted on. Senate Bill 429 still needs to be taken up by a second Senate panel, the Education, Energy and the Environment Committee, which is scheduled for Monday. That gives lawmakers just two weeks to approve a Senate bill and hammer out differences with the House before the April 7 end of the General Assembly session. The so-called 'Excellence in Maryland Public Schools Act' was sparked by the state's fiscal crisis and by the repeated call from local school officials for flexibility in the implementation of the Blueprint for Maryland's Future, the sweeping 10-year, multibillion-dollar education reform plan. Gov. Wes Moore introduced a bill that keeps the goals of the plan largely intact, but delays funding and implementation of some portions. One portion is the proposal for an increase in teacher 'collaborative time,' or time that teachers spend on planning, training and working with individual students, as opposed to time in front of a classroom. The Blueprint calls for teachers' classroom time to be cut from 80% of their day to 60%; the administration bill would delay the start of that for four years, in part because it would require the hiring of at least 12,000 new teachers at a time when the state faces a teacher shortage. Budget agreement could generate more than $1 billion in new revenue The House rejected that plan, and set collaborative time to begin in 2026. But the Senate went with the governor's version in what Budget and Taxation Committee Chair Guy Guzzone (D-Howard) called a 'pacing' of the initiative. 'Whenever you don't extend the full amount, if, in fact, you want to get to the full amount, by definition, it has to go out further,' Guzzone told reporters after the committee's vote. The committee did agree with the House version and rejected the administration's call for a two-year freeze on funding for community schools, those located in low-income neighborhoods Sen. President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) has said such a delay would negatively affect students. The Senate committee also agreed with the House to 'hold harmless' funding for multilingual learners, students in poverty and those in special education — exempting those students from any per pupil funding reductions that might come down. The committee on Friday also added students at the Maryland School for the Blind, Maryland School for the Deaf and the SEED School of Maryland. The committee was more generous than either the House or the administration when it comes to Consortium on Coordinated Community Supports, a part of the Blueprint plan that deals with mental health, behavioral and other wraparound services for students. The House agreed with the governor that it should be cut from $130 million this year to $40 million in fiscal 2026, but senators want to cut the fund to $70 million next year and raise it to $100 million in fiscal 2027 and each year after. But senators sided with the administration on 'foundation' funding, or per pupil spending. Under the Blueprint, it was slated to grow from $8,789 per pupil this year to $9,226 next year, but the administration proposed reducing the growth to $9,063 next year and slowing the pace of growth for several years after. The Senate committee agreed, but the House voted to keep the original Blueprint funding levels. With an eye toward looming cuts to the federal government, another Senate amendment made Friday would freeze funding increases if federal funds or revenue projections by the state's Board of Revenues in December decrease by 3.75%. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Senate Majority Leader Nancy King (D-Montgomery), a member of the Budget and Taxation Committee, earlier this week defended delays in Blueprint goals for the time being. 'There's a lot of good that's already come out of the Blueprint, and a lot more that is going to come as we go,' King said Tuesday. 'I don't think it would be a bad thing if we just slowed it [collaborative time] down a bit.' The Senate Education, Energy and the Environment will review, and possibly vote on, the other parts of the bill Monday that deal with teacher programs, initiatives and other incentives before sending it to the full Senate for consideration and then back to the House. Del. Vanessa Atterbeary (D-Howard), chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, said during a press conference Thursday to announce a framework for the overall fiscal 2026 budget, that negotiations on the Blueprint are ongoing. But Atterbeary said she and Del. Ben Barnes (D-Prince George's and Anne Arundel), chair of the Appropriations Committee, have made their positions 'pretty clear.' 'Where we stand and where the House stands in … protecting those that are most vulnerable, particularly those in community schools,' she said. 'So we'll see what the Senate does, and we'll link up with them and negotiate that in the days to come.'
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Maryland state Senate committee votes to keep some of Gov. Moore's plans in Blueprint education bill
BALTIMORE — A state Senate committee voted Friday to stick to Maryland Gov. Wes Moore's four-year pause on teacher collaborative time and maintain funding increases for community schools under the Blueprint for Maryland's Future, diverging in policy from the House. 'If this is ultimately going to succeed and we are going to lift up every child, that's the place where that's going to happen,' Senate Budget and Taxation Committee Chair Guy Guzzone, a Howard County Democrat, said of community school funding after the voting session. 'I'm not saying there won't be a time when we have to deal with scaling that back, pacing it in a different way, but I think we can hold for right now on that.' The Senate Budget and Taxation Committee voted on amendments to Moore's Excellence in Maryland Public Schools Act Friday morning, splitting policy proposed by the governor and the House, which has already passed the bill, down the middle. Moore's bill to alter the state's landmark Blueprint for Maryland's Future education reform policy, which he testified in favor of in 2020, originally proposed a two-year delay in funding increases for schools that receive Concentration of Poverty Grants or community schools and would have paused the implementation of teacher collaborative time for four years. Earlier this month, the House chamber voted to restore the funding increases for community schools and shorten the pause on collaborative time from four years to one. Guzzone, who offered the amendments to the bill Friday, said he prefers the term 'pacing' over 'pause.' Sen. J.B. Jennings, a Baltimore County Republican who sits on the Budget and Taxation Committee, said that, while they provided more cuts than the House, he doesn't think it's enough to 'get us out of the perils we're facing right now.' In an interview with The Baltimore Sun, Jennings praised Moore for the cuts he proposed in the bill's original language. 'He was willing to do what others weren't,' Jennings said. 'The third rail of politics is education. No one wants to cut from it, but we're always adding more and more and more to education funding-wise, and we have to slow it down some.' In restoring the four-year delay in collaborative time implementation, the newly amended bill would reduce the amount of foundation spending per pupil because funding tied to collaborative time is baked into that formula. If passed, this per pupil decrease would not impact spending for special education, English learners or students most at risk of not succeeding academically, as well as those who attend the Maryland School for the Deaf, the Maryland School for the Blind or the SEED School of Maryland. Sen. Karen Lewis Young, a Frederick County Democrat, asked if committee staff knew the financial impact that the lowered spending per pupil would have on local boards of education. The answer was not immediately available. 'Thank you,' Lewis Young sighed. The amended bill would also lower the funding increases that the Maryland Consortium on Coordinated Community Supports, which provides mental health and wraparound services to students, to cap at $100 million annually. The reduction in compensatory spending would save $30 million each year. Additionally, under amendments to Moore's bill adopted by the Senate committee, funding increases would freeze if December's revenue projections from the Maryland Board of Revenue Estimates decrease by $850 million or if federal funds decrease by $712 million, respectively. A combined decrease in revenue projections and federal funding that flows into the state equal to at least $1.2 billion would also trigger a freeze in funding increases. The education policy aspects of the bill need to be amended by the Senate Education, Energy and the Environment Committee before the bill can be debated by the full chamber. _____
Yahoo
27-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Senate committee considers taming IT department as part of ongoing budget effort
Sen. Katie Fry Hester (D-Howard and Montgomery) is sponsoring a bill she said would bring accountability to the Department of Information Technology and help ensure major IT projects are delivered on time and on budget.. (File photo by Bryan P. Sears/Maryland Matters.) The chair of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee Wednesday said his committee will look to resolve how the state handles major information technology projects, saying the current process has resulted in money 'going down a hole.' Some lawmakers are dismayed by the Department of Information Technology, which has shied away from taking control of major projects since it was founded im 2002. Senate Budget and Taxation Committee Chair Sen. Guy Guzzone (D-Howard) characterized managing such projects as a money pit at a time when the state stares down a $3 billion budget gap. 'This is a mess. It was a mess even before 2002, quite frankly, and some of this — the DoIT solution — was supposed to help all of that,' Guzzone said during a committee hearing Wednesday. 'We have not, in my opinion, in all the years I've been around, ever seen an actual solution to our problem. The money has been, unfortunately, going down a hole in many ways and in many projects. And it's really a shame.' Guzzone's comments followed testimony on a proposal to impose stringent reporting requirements for the department. It also comes on the same day that the Board of Public Works approved a more than $400 million IT contract with dozens of contractors. 'It's been a long time, and the lack of clarity, authority and management and oversight really has led to poor project management, cost overruns and failures,' said Sen. Katie Fry Hester (D-Howard and Montgomery) and sponsor of the Senate Bill 705. Hester pointed to a scathing audit of the agency and its failures to properly manage the MDThink project. That mismanagement increased costs to $588 million — 80% more than the initial estimate, Hester said, calling it 'pretty sad.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE 'In recent years, the state has also spent millions on the development of IT projects that produced inadequate computer systems. Some of the reasons for project failures point to poor project management, lack of initial planning, insufficiently trained personnel, and Maryland must take steps to safeguard its growing investment in valued resources,' she said. Hester said the current system lacks accountability for delivering projects on time and on budget, describing it as 'contractors overseeing contractors overseeing contractors.' Officials from the department did not testify at the hearing Wednesday. In a 'letter of concern,' Melissa Leaman, deputy secretary of the department, said the bill duplicates existing reports and 'would impose a significant burden while providing minimal value.' Leaman also cited security and procurement concerns. 'We strongly urge the committee to reconsider SB 705 and instead engage in a collaborative effort to refine our current reporting structure in a way that balances transparency, efficiency, and security. We remain committed to ensuring accountability and providing valuable information while protecting the integrity of state IT projects and operations,' her letter said. Despite the concerns in Leaman's letter, Guzzone signaled an interest in taming the problem. Guzzone said the committee could use Hester's bill and may also look at language in the budget to bring the agency to heel. 'We're going to work hard on this,' Guzzone said. 'This is not something that we need … with all the challenges we have financially. This has got to get handled, and it's going to get handled. It's going to take a while, but it's something that must be done.' Earlier in the day, the Board of Public Works voted to approve a statewide IT contract involving 39 companies. The 10-year deal, valued at more than $400 million, was pulled from a board agenda two weeks ago after Hester and Sen. Stephen S. Hershey Jr. (R-Upper Shore) wrote a letter expressing concerns about the contract and numerous bidder protests and appeals filed with the Maryland Board of Contract Appeals. State officials asked the board to approve the contract even though the appeals and protests had not yet been resolved. Department of General Services Secretary Atif T. Chaudhry said the state 'has a duty to protect essential services that directly impact public health and safety for over 2 million residents across the state, which is nearly one-third of the state's population, particularly including programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also referred to as SNAP, supplemental Social Security Income, also referred to as SSI, child welfare support, foster care services and countless more.' Chaudhry also cited concerns about federal funding which is now guaranteed through October. During the board meeting, Leaman said the agency takes 'seriously our role as stewards of taxpayers' dollars.' The changes being made to how the department oversees major IT projects reflect current best management practices, she said, 'but we recognize that transitioning to new practices is hard and will take agencies time.' The board approved the contract 2-0. Comptroller Brooke Lierman recused herself citing advice of ethics counsel. A spokesperson for Lierman declined to elaborate on the conflict, citing a policy of not commenting beyond the comptroller's announcement Following the board vote, Hershey criticized the approval for jumping ahead of the ongoing protests and appeals. Hershey said it may not be incumbent on the legislature to dig in on what he said was 'a budget issue.' He said lawmakers 'can also do a lot with budget language and forcing an agency to comply with the will of the legislature. We have avenues that we believe are able to be used.' 'At the end of the day, these are taxpayer dollars, and the state has to find a better way to manage them and assure taxpayers that they're being spent cost effectively and efficiently,' he said.
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Maryland budget cuts ‘getting worse': Senate to make deeper cuts amid Trump funding freeze
BALTIMORE — Maryland senators are revealing which budget items are on the chopping block as anxiety regarding federal funding under President Donald Trump continues to loom large during an already fraught fiscal season. 'It is more uncertain and worse than anticipated given the likely cuts that are coming in from the federal level,' Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Baltimore Democrat, said Tuesday. 'It looks like a lot of core Maryland programs are in the crosshairs.' ƒFerguson said that he and Senate Budget and Taxation Committee Chair Guy Guzzone, a Howard County Democrat, are looking at proposed budgets so they can make 'additional adjustments and cuts.' They're eyeing executive agency travel budgets, personnel costs, vacant state government positions, any programs recently passed by the legislature that could have their funding delayed and projects that could be put on hold. The Maryland General Assembly walked into the 2025 legislative session aware that it would have to contend with a nearly $3 billion budget deficit. Gov. Wes Moore in early January proposed about $2 billion in cuts. Since then, state lawmakers have also been grappling with a looming $3 billion in potential Child Victims Act settlements and executive orders from the Trump administration that disproportionately impact Maryland. That includes a federal funding freeze — the administration has argued that the president's authority outweighs court orders to restore state aid — and cuts to the federal workforce. More than 160,000 federal workers live in Maryland, meaning a core part of the state's economy is reliant on the federal government. After being sworn in, Trump immediately took broad action through executive orders implementing massive staff cuts among federal workers and a pause on federal grants and loans to state and local governments. He says the actions are part of his plan to get rid of government 'waste, fraud and abuse.' A majority of Americans approve of his downsizing of the federal government, according to recent polls. But the president's actions have prompted numerous lawsuits, including from Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown. Trump asserts that his election victory provides him with a mandate to implement his campaign agenda. In a Truth Social post on Tuesday, the president said his temporary organization led by tech mogul Elon Musk, the Department of Government Efficiency, has found 'billions of dollars of waste, fraud and abuse' — a 'campaign promise' that he said is 'important for America.' However, Brown says that with Trump as president, the federal government 'seems to be at war with the people of America.' Trump's funding pause was reversed by the federal court. A federal judge ruled Monday that the Trump administration is violating the court-ordered pause by continuing to withhold money for certain programs and agencies. Though House lawmakers have the first opportunity to amend Moore's proposed budget this year, Ferguson said that he is already questioning 'how much' or 'whether' the state can backfill cuts to programming, or if Maryland can continue that programming, at all. 'We are anticipating it getting worse,' he said. Top Maryland officials are also concerned about the future of federal Medicaid funding and what updated cost shifts may occur. Currently, the federal government pays for 90% of the cost of Medicaid, and states pick up the remaining 10%. Using a 50-50 split as an example, Ferguson said that the state would have to reevaluate what health care services it could provide and take a hard look at eligibility provisions. The Moore administration is tracking where funding does or does not go, and working with state and local partners to ensure they are getting the money they are entitled to. As of Tuesday morning, the Maryland Department of the Environment, the Maryland Energy Administration and the Maryland Clean Energy Center were not currently receiving their usual funding from the federal government. Officials from the Moore administration said that they are anticipating a 'significant order' regarding operations at the U.S. Department of Education as early as this week, which could impact student loans and meals provided by schools for children in need. Ferguson said that the president not spending federal funding appropriated by Congress under the law is 'a massive shift in the way our government has functioned, and would leave money for critical programs up to 'political discretion' in a way he didn't think was possible in 'modern times.' Noting that this affects all states regardless of their political lean, he said that he believes that, at some point, the congressional majority will step in. Regardless, Congress is set to show the lengths it's willing to go to forward a Trump agenda with the forthcoming expiration of its current budget reconciliation. In December, Congress passed a continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown through March 14. Ferguson sees the day before the money runs out as a forthcoming moment of clarity for the state of the legislature's budget negotiations. 'Increasingly, March 13 is becoming an important date to know what the world will look like for Maryland,' he said. ------------
