With Maryland facing a $2 billion shortfall next year, Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) offered few budgetary assurances to a meeting of the state's public school superintendents Tuesday morning -- and the Senate president was far more blunt in a later appearance.

"It means you're going to have to start taking a portion of the hit," said Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert).

With the help of federal stimulus money, the state's schools have fared far better during tight budget times than other state-funded entities. Or, as O'Malley put it: "Public education, K-12, is the only member of the herd that hasn't taken a trip to the slaughterhouse."

O'Malley's proposal for the 2011 fiscal year is due to the legislature in January, and he is crafting another round of mid-year budget cuts in the meantime. He offered few specifics to the superintendents meeting in Annapolis about what cuts they might expect -- but repeated several times the challenge presented by cutting $2 billion from a $13 billion budget.

O'Malley said he is also hopeful that Congress will extend federal stimulus funding -- particularly a more generous match for state Medicaid programs -- which could provide some relief to Maryland and other states in coming years.

In terms of cuts, Miller spoke mostly about his well-known desire to shift the burden of teacher pension costs from the state to the counties.

"I'd like to see the counties take control of the teacher pension system," he told reporters after addressing the group. He acknowledged that a complete shift of the responsibility is not likely, however.

While pulling few punches about the budget outlook, Miller sought to assure the group he is a champion of education.

"I'm certainly not an education basher," he said. "I love it very much."

House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel) is scheduled to address the superintendents Tuesday afternoon.

Local governments and businesses in Prince George's County have been awarded about $400 million in federal stimulus money, officials said at a news conference Monday. The funds will allow county and municipal officials to hire 55 new police officers and purchase public safety equipment, and have prevented the layoffs of as many as 500 county employees, County Executive Jack B. Johnson (D) said Monday.

About $23 million of the money will go to local contractors, creating or saving 241 jobs, officials said.

The county-level numbers were presented at a Monday afternoon news conference that brought together federal and local officials, including U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and Reps. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) The numbers are based on preliminary data released by the Obama administration last week. Final nationwide numbers are due out at the end of the month.

"These federal dollars have been substantial," Johnson said. "If we didn't have the stimulus funds we would have laid off hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people."

Johnson recently instituted the county's first round of layoffs since the recession started. About 50 employees spanning numerous county agencies were notified of the cuts early this month, though a complete accounting of the layoffs has not been released by Johnson's office.

According to figures released Monday, about $116 million of the funds will be directed to transportation projects in the county. Nearly $118 million will be allocated to education and $15.6 million will go to public safety. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act also included tax relief measures that will help more that 550,000 residents, officials said.

You can get a breakdown of where stimulus money is going -- at the national, state and county levels -- here.

Maryland's largest public employee union and advocates for the disabled, mentally ill and residents struggling with substance abuse rallied in Annapolis today, demanding Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) and state lawmakers consider tax increases and dipping into the state's untouched rainy-day reserve fund rather than further cut state health programs or state employees' pay to balance the budget.

Though O'Malley and leading Democrats in the General Assembly have offered no indication that they will support new taxes, the advocates cautioned that cuts alone will only further erode core state services.

"It is time to dip into the rainy-day fund because it's raining out there and we need shelter from the storm," said Patrick Moran, Maryland director for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). "Mr. Governor, please, please consider your rainy day funds," added Mary Townes, an employee at the Baltimore City Department of Social Services, who said workers there are staying late into the night, and struggling each day to find enough resources to identify and protect the city's most vulnerable children. "It's unfair to say we care about the children and then not invest in enough people to protect them," Townes said.

(AFSCME MD Director Patrick Moran)

Maryland has barely touched its rainy day fund (now about $650 million) even as many other states have depleted theirs during the recession. O'Malley is expected to propose nearly another $300 million in cuts next month as part of an effort to curb state spending expected to outpace revenue by nearly $2 billion in the fiscal year beginning next summer.

Before the rally, O'Malley told reporters at an unrelated event that he is still inclined to protect the rainy-day fund.

"It's always tempting to say, 'It's raining really, really hard,'" O'Malley said. "I think we still need to protect it. ... Part of the reason that we have a AAA bond rating is because we've protected our rainy-day fund. That's an important consideration."

Moran said he was tired of the bond-rating argument, "I've heard this over and over. I think we need to look beyond that. ... it's going to be harder for residents to get services they need with more and more cuts." The union also advocated closing corporate-tax loopholes, such as requiring so-called "combined reporting" for businesses' related subsidiaries, extending the state's millionaire's tax, which is scheduled to sunset after next year, and increasing the gas tax by 5 cents.

Coalition for Disabled Resurrects bill for 5-Cent Alcohol Tax
(Laura Howell, director of MD Assoc. of Community Services)

Recovering drug addicts, severely disabled Marylanders and parents of children suffering from extreme mental illness offered often emotional pleas for help today at a capital news conference intended to spark new support for a bill to replenish funding cut to Maryland health services through a new 5-cent tax on alcohol.

The Maryland Developmental Disabilities Coalition along with drug and alcohol abuse counselors, and advocates for the mentally ill said a new poll should convince lawmakers that the tax would not be villanized before an upcoming election year.

According to the groups, 83 percent of Marylanders favor either "an increased tax on alcohol in Maryland to improve access to alcohol and drug treatment," or "a five-cent per drink increase in the alcohol tax to fund services for people with developmental disabilities," The groups paid for the poll conducted last month by Gonzales Research & Marketing Strategies.

Maryland's public health department has been subject to 4 mid-year cuts in the last twelve months totaling $45 million. More than a third have affected mental health and community programs, the groups said, even as the recession has caused enrollment in those programs to increase 7 percent to 8 percent over the past two years. Intensive outpatient programs, for example, are no longer available to anyone not eligible for Medicaid.

The bill that failed to reach a vote last year will serve as a model for one Delegates Bill Bronrott, Karen Montgomery and Sen. Richard Madaleno and others have promised to introduce when the General Assembly reconvenes early next year.

It would generate an estimated $80 to $90 million annually.

-- Aaron C. Davis and John Wagner

After the Prince George's police union announced an ad campaign warning of the danger of cuts to the police budget, County Executive Jack B. Johnson's spokesman sought to highlight the upgrades the public safety agencies have seen on Johnson's watch.

"Our position is this: When you look at at public safety funding in Prince George's County, we have increased the police department's budget by 60 percent over the last seven years," said Johnson's spokesman, John Erzen. "It's gone from $145 million to $253 million. ...You have the fact that we have more police officers now than we've had in the history of the county; crime is at a 20-year low and continuing to decline; we have better equipment, better training, ... [and] no sworn personnel were laid off. ... I think that shows a very serious commitment to public safety in Prince George's County."

Asked what he thought of the ads in light of the upgrades he cited, Erzen declined to comment.

"I'm not going to get into a back and forth with the FOP on that," he said. "If they have a position and they want to state it, that's fine. But this is our position."

For anyone that needed reminders of how little love the Prince George's police union has for the county's current political leadership, they can be found plastered all over Metro buses, posters and billboards for the next month.

Starting Thursday, a near-six-figure ad campaign sponsored by the county's Fraternal Order of Police will begin to roll out, in the hopes of raising awareness of the potential impact of any cutbacks on law enforcement. The ads were paid for by union dues.

One of the ads--reminiscent of Hillary Clinton's famous "3 a.m." ad (video) during the presidential primary--depicts a worried woman on the phone, with text that reads, "WHAT IF YOU CALLED 911 AND WE HAD NO ONE TO SEND?" Another shows a police officer with folded arms, with text reading, "WE WANT TO BE THERE FOR YOU. Do you really want to give that up? DON'T LET COUNTY OFFICIALS CONTINUE TO CUT POLICE FUNDING."

The ads are referring to a series of government-wide cost-cutting measures the county has put in place in an attempt to deal with lagging revenues due to the recession--everything from a hiring freeze to trims of vacant positions to cuts to the county-wide budget. Some measures, like furloughs, landed the county in federal court, where a judge ruled one of their furlough plans unconstitutional. Others, like recent layoffs, drew fire from critics who said the county should have tapped its $182-million rainy-day fund rather than letting workers go.

Though the cuts have been spread across multiple county agencies--and the layoffs have not yet touched any sworn police officers--FOP president Vince Canales says any layoffs affect county police in some way, because financial stress can lead some to commit crimes.

"All these layoffs have some kind of indirect impact on us as well," Canales said. "When you consider you're talking about people dealing with financial issues...people taking desperate measures to try to make ends meet... in the end the police department is still involved."

Canales said the ads are also a signal that further cutbacks--especially as a result of continued cuts in state aid--will not be tolerated, and that candidates for office in 2010 should be aware that the public safety unions intend to get their messages out during the campaigns.

"We want to be a major player in that," Canales said. "We've attempted in the past to do things the old-fashioned way with relationships with elected officials. In some ways, that's been fruitful, but in other ways, it's been like beating your head against the wall."

--By Jonathan Mummolo and John Wagner