The largest part of the state budget is for education. With a law that says the education budget cant go down, what are our hopes? Most kids I know from being home schooled do better in college than ones who have been in public schools. Our kids need a good education, but with teachers making 50-65k and more a year for working nine months, we need to take a new look at it. Harford County is building two new schools without enough students to fill them, in order not to lose the money they get. There are few jobs for kids graduating. Is this the best way to spend this much?

Aren't the casinos supposed to be saving us?
How about cutting education? We keep throwing money at that problem with little to no results.

Screw you o'malley and your furlough days, you raised my property and sales taxes while reduceing my pay 2%...

If you haven’t read the investigation into BBH that's been in the Sun recently, read it!!! BBH is probably a large contributor to this shortfall as they are scamming us tax payers.

Voters of Maryland, you own this and the huge unfunded public employee pension liability that will have to be paid for next year. You have two choices. Open your check book or move to another state. You re-elected O'Malley so complaining is not an available option.

Funny how this is discovered just after the elections, isn't it?

Just take a look at your recent articles for some of the lingering problems this State faces!

BBH is ripping off the State as well as Correctional Workers scamming inmate acccounts thereby showing that if an internal and external audit of the many State programs and state funded initiatives were done, we would probably find close to $250-500-million worth of otherwise negated funds that could go to closing this $1.6-Billion structural deficit!

Then we can begin addressing the spending spree these democratic legislators love to do year after year, by placing a moratorium on Bond Bills and other expediture legislation that really only allows for elected officials to fund pet projects of those who have padded their campaign accounts throughout the election season~quid pro quo!

Do the math and hold these agencies accountable to start to do more with less, as we cannot afford to reduce our spending priorities for our children and cannot rely on a shaky gaming income to be our State's savior!

Voters of Maryland, you asked for it & now you are going to start getting it. Owe'Malley is coming to collect on his victory & you will not believe what he has in store for the next 4 years. Way to go!! Why wasn't this information released before the election? As the spouse of a state employee, I feel your pain John. Take the furlough days + the pay cut forced on state workers, & the real reduction in pay is about 3.5%. & all I can see is Owe'Malley declaring victory last Tuesday & saying he is for families. Really? How many thousands have been harmed due to the way you treat state employees?

The free loaders from Baltimore City, PG and MontgomeryCounties elected the idiot O'Malley - now you have to live with the results. If you are onWelfare or an Illegal you have nothing to worry about, only those that pay taxes have a reason for concern for themselves and their families. The State Retirement was created for State Employees not for County Employees ! ! ! !

I'm not sure how Ehrlich - who would have cut the sales tax without being able to make up for the difference - would have helped here.

And are we really encouraging the state to cut on education? The only thing that is going to be able to save us is a well educated workforce that will attract high paying jobs to this area! Sure, lets cut back on education and let everybody fend for themselves to get a good education. Meanwhile, our jobs will go to states and countries where the emphasis is on education, not on letting your child play Medal of Honor for 10 hours a day.
Cutting teacher salaries is not going to help get qualified teachers into the schools either.

@JoeB. I voted for Ehrlich and cannot fathom O'Malley. But your calling my fellow MoCo residents "free loaders" is absurd. We pay 50% of the entire income tax of the state! A majority of MoCo residents may be misguided (I believe they are) but they are clearly not free-loaders. Rather, the rest of the state free-loads on an oblivious MoCo.

You can pave the schools with gold if you want. We also need to encourage lower taxes for businesses to come here. The work force for good enough paying jobs will come from everywhere if the pay is right. We have thousands of college graduates looking for jobs now. All the Democrats want to do under Obama is grab as much money as they can for wealth redistribution while hard working taxpayers, black or white, are dumb enough to vote for them. Perhaps we could print Maryland currency and put it into the treasury like the Feds are doing. On the 100 dollar bill you can have O'Malley. On the fifty, Mikulski and her lesbian girlfriend. On the twenty a symbol of the Maryland Democratic party. On the ten, John Waters. On the five, an ad for the liberal press, and on the one, a picture of Md taxpayers holding out empty pockets.

BOHICA!

Is anybody shocked that this came out right after the election?

Of course the whole budget was being propped up by temporary fed money and the majority of Maryland voters still buy all the BS that cross the teflon leprechauns lips.

Don't forget that wonderful "Millonaire's Tax" that chased 10's and 10's of million's of dollars out of the state. Only in a liberals mind would they think that those who worked their rear ends off to create a successful business and jobs, are stupid enough to stick around and pay 50-65% combined taxes. There is no incentive to stay in MD and create jobs. Boy am I loving moving my business to Florida right now. Now im only getting rammed by the Feds on my taxes. Go Ravens!

We can cut the budget alot by not giving Money to Casa de Maryland and also cut alot of other social programs that have not pained out. We give alot of money to drug addict when they just using the system.

Don't forget that wonderful "Millonaire's Tax" that chased 10's and 10's of million's of dollars out of the state. Only in a liberals mind would they think that those who worked their rear ends off to create a successful business and jobs, are stupid enough to stick around and pay 50-65% combined taxes. There is no incentive to stay in MD and create jobs. Boy am I loving moving my business to Florida right now. Now im only getting rammed by the Feds on my taxes. Go Ravens!

SERVES YOU RIGHT, MARYLAND! Our new state slogan will be: "Maryland: What's in your wallet?"

4 more years of this looney and I can say this: We will have DOUBLED that deficit.

Isn't it time we made some cuts somewhere? Like, lets begin with section 8 housing and the needless programs that taxpayers continue to fund. They live more high off of the hog than I do.

I see more taxes on the way, maybe a 1% or 0.75% raise in the state sales tax.

You gave this guy 4 years and already, he's in a pickle.

HAHAHAHAHAHAH! CONGRATULATIONS MARYLAND! SERVES YOU RIGHT!

Lets see. Inmate pay raises,family days catered,graduations catered. Overtime called in for all of these useless things. 32 million to build a treatment building at MCTC. More addiction,social work and treatment staff in prison for inmates who have no desire to change. DOC hiring multiple Commishioners and assistants. The waste of money in the DOC alone is unbelievable.

Just you wait until November. No way that guy makes it past election day. Him and the DemocRATS are finished!

:-)

Shame on the voters that voted O'Malley back in. The state of maryland employees(minus the ones in education) have really gotten screwed. Especially the essential employees (the ones who have to report to work when the weather is bad while the non-essential ones stay home)- because they basically have to work some of their shifts w/o pay basically. They got their pay reduced - granted they don't have to take furlough days but they have to report to work no matter what. I there are rumors going around that we are going to have our pay cut again. And the state employees have gone x 3 years without a single raise and it looks like they are not going to get any raises anyway soon. But you know that does not stop the bills from coming and from the service fees from going up and cost of everything else from going up. I would like to buy a new or a new used car but I am afraid to do so. Don't know what is going to happen. He said whatever he had to to get re-elected. And yes what about the slots. If they would get off their fat you know whats and get it done the budget would get alot of help. But this state would rather cut off its nose despite its face then to actually do something to help its self.