Baltimore budget cuts
The news that Mayor Sheila Dixon is asking her agency heads to start trimming millions from next year's budget in hopes of getting ahead of the plunging economy is suprrising only in the sense that she's talking about the fiscal 2010 budget and not about immediate cuts to the current FY 2009 spending plan. Mayors in cities from coast to coast are slashing their budgets now, and even some of Maryland's relatively wealthy counties -- most recently, Montgomery County -- are making immediate cuts. The idea is that by reducing spending now, they can lessen the amount of pain they'll face next year.
What's a little odd about Dixon's announcement is that it comes extremely early in the budget process. Baltimore (and other local governments) aren't dealing with a predictable budget shortfall, like the structural deficits that have plagued the state in recent years. Instead, they're coping with an extremely volitile economy (if you could have predicted the current situation six months ago, gold star for you) and with total uncertainty about how much the state and federal governments might cut in local aid. The cuts could turn out to be far too much or too little.
We'll get more details this afternoon on exactly how much the mayor is targeting -- and on her thinking about why the city needs to start making decisions now.
