Maryland governor cuts budget to boost economy

Nearly $150 million in cuts will impact the Arts.

“Arts organizations are in an economic disaster,” said Laura Malkus of the Baltimore Small Stage Coalition.

“It’s going to cause a lot of pain,” testified Charlotte Davis of the Rural Maryland Council.

And even the Chesapeake Bay Trust’s efforts to plant trees in urban areas.

“We provided a list of 20 awards to the Board of Public Works that this will impact,” said the trust’s vice president for outreach and education, Kacey Wetzel, “and unfortunately, we will have to make cuts to those grants.”

Maryland Governor Wes Moore says the re-allocation of money was necessary to pay for expanding state-sponsored child care and providing an expansion of healthcare coverage through Medicaid.

“In protecting these two areas, we also needed to make hard decisions about how we invest elsewhere,” said Moore, “and so today, our administration is doing what Marylanders are doing every single day, because every day, Marylanders are making tough decisions about how to spend what they have.”

The governor says over the last seven years, the state budget grew by 70 percent while the state’s economy only grew by three percent.

Those who are sick or saddled with child care bills aren’t entering the work force or helping to grow the economy.

The governor says state agencies are taking the brunt of the budget cuts, but like those impacted in the private sector, even some of those, like the Office of Public Defenders, wonder how they’ll make it work.

“It is unfathomable how OPD can appear on the list,” said Maryland State Public Defender Natasha Dartigue, “OPD is in crisis. Every dollar matters.”