The Montgomery County school system could be forced to pay millions of dollars in penalties under an opinion Wednesday by Maryland's attorney general that its county government had "artificially" satisfied a state law that sets a minimum funding level for education.

The 21-page opinion issued by Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler could leave Montgomery County liable for $16 million to $64 million in penalties, county officials said. The state Board Of Education will decide whether to penalize the school systems.

Gansler said Prince George's County committed the same violation, but School Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. said that, based on the formula used to calculate the penalty, he is unsure whether his school district will have to pay anything.

The central issue has been the ability of local governments to comply with Maryland's "maintenance of effort" law, which sets minimum spending on education. During the economic recession, Montgomery and Prince George's have had trouble meeting the spending requirement.

Montgomery and Prince George's county councils ordered their school systems to reimburse them for debt service on public school construction, an expense usually covered by the counties. The attorney general described that move as an "artificial" way of meeting the minimum requirement for education spending while actually decreasing the amount spent on education. In Montgomery, the reimbursement was $79.5 million. In Prince George's, it was $11.8 million.

Read the full article here.

Montgomery Council President Phil Andrews warned Monday that the ballooning county budget deficit - it's now hit at least $400 million, given rollbacks in expected tax revenues - will require an across-the-board salary freeze next year.

"All the alternatives to a pay freeze are worse. They are worse for the employees and they are worse for the public," Andrews said, adding that it's the only way to "avoid draconian cuts in services, layoffs and tax increases" in an already tough economy.

There's no accident to his timing: labor talks are underway between the county administration and public employee unions.

"I think it's important that that message is made clear at this point, so the parties in the collective bargaining agreements are under no illusions about what is affordable," Andrews said.

Schools, libraries, police and a host of Montgomery County departments would get a mid-year budget trim under a $30 million cost-cutting plan being proposed by county executive Ike Leggett.

But that would just be a small down payment on the far-reaching cuts needed to close next year's budget gap, which Leggett projected at nearly $370 million.

And Leggett said that big number could get bigger still. Next year's shortfall "may significantly worsen in the near future because of continued revenue deterioration and the very real potential for further and substantive reductions in State Aid," Leggett wrote to the county council, which can approve them, wait, or come up with new ones.

Among the proposed reductions: police would roll back its 2010 recruiting class from 47 to 36 officers, library materials would be cut by more than a million dollars, and public schools would take a $9.7 million hit.

For the full list of the proposed cuts, click here.

The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission has indefinitely suspended a series of rules slammed as unconstitutional by the ACLU. They've also agreed to work together on permanent revisions to the regulations.

Park police will no longer stop someone for holding a campaign sign without a permit, as happened to a volunteer campaigning with Montgomery GOP candidate Robin Ficker on the Fourth of July. The park rule makers also dropped permit requirements for collecting signatures and conducting interviews.

Click here for a copy of the suspension order.

The American Civil Liberties Union on Monday demanded that officials who govern parks in Montgomery and Prince George's counties junk rules restricting free speech.

The rules require a permit to carry signs or solicit signatures, according to the ACLU.

"In America, you don't need a permit from the government to talk to people in the park or to carry a sign in the park," said David Rocah, a staff attorney for the ACLU of Maryland.

The case arose when Montgomery County Council candidate Robin Ficker and campaign worker Amy Ginther were stopped by police in Germantown Regional Park on July 4, according to a legal "demand letter" submitted to the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission on Monday.

Ginther held a sign that said: "Robin Ficker: Property Tax Relief,"

A Montgomery parks spokeswoman did not immediately return a call seeking comment Monday.