Legislators talk state budget before heading back to Annapolis in January

CAMBRIDGE — The state of the state’s budget took up a large part of the conversation at a Dorchester Chamber of Commerce luncheon with state legislators on Dec. 4.

The Lower Shore delegation answered questions from chamber members regarding concerns about Maryland’s fiscal health, with a looming $2.7 billion state budget deficit predicted in fiscal year 2026.

“The reality is that if you continue to do the things that have gotten us into this deficit, it’s only going to take us back there again,” Sen. Johnny Mautz (R-Caroline, Dorchester, Talbot, Wicomico) said. “There needs to be a structural, fundamental change.”

Mautz and Dels. Sheree Sample-Hughes (D-Dorchester, Wicomico), Chris Adams (R-Dorchester, Talbot, Wicomico) and Tom Hutchinson (R-Caroline, Dorchester, Talbot, Wicomico) all spoke at the chamber lunch. They, along with the rest of the state’s legislators, will head back to Annapolis in January for the 447th session of the Maryland General Assembly.

In talking about the state’s budget, Mautz also said there should be incentives in place to try to drive state agencies to save money.

Sample-Hughes said the state should do its fiscal homework and find out what it “really (has) to work with.”

“But I do believe that we can still address and attack some of these goals that we have, whether it’s education, whether it’s climate, whether it’s criminal justice,” she said. “We can do it in a pragmatic way.”

Adams said to solve the budget problem, the state has to leverage and grow its private sector.

“You do not do what we’ve done for the past two years,” he said. He said the state and its leadership need to stop spending so much, own up to the problem and stop blaming it on COVID-19.

Hutchinson expressed his concerns with the transportation budget and the lack of funding for many infrastructure projects across the state.

“We’ve got to pay attention to our transportation budget,” he said.

BLUEPRINTThe legislators also talked about the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, a plan passed by the Maryland General Assembly in 2021 that aims to improve student outcomes and the quality of education across the state through increasing education funding by $3.8 billion over a 10-year period.

Sample-Hughes said although Blueprint’s goals are important, the General Assembly’s decision to pass the plan has contributed to the state’s budget deficit. She later advocated for giving more resources to the nonprofits that already serve 3 and 4 year olds, rather than putting money toward expanding early childhood education in the state’s public school systems.

Mautz said he thinks the project needs to be paused so that the plan’s strengths and weaknesses can be better evaluated.

JUVENILE CRIMEThe legislators also talked about the state of juvenile crime in Maryland, with Sample-Hughes calling for the removal of Department of Juvenile Services Secretary Vincent Schiraldi.

Hutchinson said that with recent juvenile justice reforms going into effect Nov. 1, he doesn’t think a lot of legislators are going to want to discuss juvenile crime this upcoming session.

“Because they’ll say, ‘We just put that in place. We haven’t even been able to see the results,’” he said.

Adams said law enforcement is needed now more than ever and officers need to be able to do their jobs.

“If you want a society, if you want a City of Cambridge, if you want an Eastern Shore (or) State of Maryland, if you want a United States that is civil, there have to be consequences,” he said.