Maryland gov: College tuition hikes possible as legislative session begins with big deficit

Maryland session begins with big budget deficit

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Gov. Martin O’Malley said Wednesday he didn’t expect a four-year tuition freeze at Maryland’s public colleges to last any longer, as lawmakers gathered for the first day of a legislative session bound to be overshadowed by a $2 billion budget deficit.

O’Malley, a Democrat who made the tuition freeze one of the hallmarks of his first term, said he believed a 3 percent increase would be moderate, but he noted it will be up to the University System of Maryland’s Board of Regents to decide what increase is needed.

“I think we have succeeded in restoring affordability, and what you’ll probably see moving forward, we hope, is some following by the regents of modest increases keeping pace with inflation,” O’Malley told reporters.

For months, some state officials have been openly questioning whether continuing the freeze was a good idea. But O’Malley’s comment came as a surprise to some during an interview with WEAA-FM’s Marc Steiner, who has interviewed the governor and the Legislature’s presiding officers early in the morning before the official start of session for years.

It also was a sign of how serious the state’s budget problems are during a legislative session that’s already being colored by an election year, when the governor and all members of the Legislature are up for re-election.

“It’s a major concession on the part of the governor,” Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller said, noting O’Malley would have liked to continue the freeze beyond the election.

O’Malley is making job creation the focus of his legislative agenda. Part of that includes legislation that would grant a $3,000 tax credit to businesses that hire someone who is unemployed.

The governor already has made more than $1 billion in cuts and spending adjustments for the current fiscal year to a $13 billion operating budget through the Board of Public Works. He held back details about where he will make additional spending reductions in the budget he is scheduled to submit to the Legislature next week. He said cuts will be made “in a number of different places.”

“It will be a tough year, but it’s a year that I think will end on a better note than it begins economically if we can create more jobs,” O’Malley told reporters.

Miller, D-Calvert, and House Speaker Michael Busch, D-Anne Arundel, reiterated plans to avoid tax increases.

They are opposing calls from some lawmakers who are pushing a dime-a-drink tax on alcohol in the state, saying it would hurt small businesses like restaurants and bars.

Busch said cuts in Medicaid reimbursements for providers could be part of the budget-balancing equation.

Sen. David Brinkley, R-Frederick, said the state needs to re-examine all priorities to tackle the budget problem.

“We might even have to look at consolidation of some departments,” Brinkley said.

While leading Democrats, including the governor, are hoping for additional federal help from Washington, Brinkley said the state didn’t do enough in previous years to address the budget problem, particularly after “a $3 billion bailout from the Obama administration.”

“All that did was postpone the inevitable,” Brinkley said.

O’Malley said the administration has looked at consolidating departments, but he noted there would not be big changes there.

“You will not see elimination of the Department of Agriculture or the elimination of the Department of the Environment,” O’Malley said.

Delegate Anthony O’Donnell, R-Calvert, criticized the administration for not doing more to control spending, and he cited the length of the tuition freeze as an example.

“If you don’t deal with your fiscal problems, you jeopardize all of the state’s priorities,” O’Donnell said. “A lot of the speeches today were about maintaining our priorities, but I believe many of those priorities have been put at risk by overspending and by poor management.”

Meanwhile, Don Fry, the chairman of the state’s slot machine commission, was in Annapolis to talk to members of the western Maryland delegation about ideas relating to a potential slot machine site at Rocky Gap State Park in Allegany County. A proposal to put slot machines there was rejected last year after developers failed to put up the required licensing fee.

Maryland’s slot machine plan, which state officials had been hoping would generate hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue once they became operational, has run into snags because of economic strains on developers due to the recession. So far, three licenses have been awarded for five potential sites.

The commission has a meeting scheduled for Jan. 22 to discuss potential legislative changes during the session, Fry said.

Associated Press Writer Kathleen Miller contributed to this report.