ANNAPOLIS —
Gov. Martin O’Malley has decided to shift some teacher pension costs to Maryland counties, the president of the Maryland Senate said Tuesday, describing it as coupling the state’s second-highest-single-year funding level in school construction with a long-debated change in how the state pays teacher pension costs.Sen. Thomas V. Mike Miller, D-Calvert, said O’Malley, a Democrat, has settled on an amount, but he said he will wait for O’Malley to announce the details on how roughly $1 billion in teacher pension money annually will be shared.
“It’s a compromise, and compromise is not a dirty word in politics,” Miller told reporters after session. “You know, the governor gives some to the counties, he takes some away. He makes the counties happy; he makes them sad. Not everybody can be happy in these very difficult times.”
O’Malley already has proposed more than $370 million in school construction money. Rick Abbruzzese, an O’Malley spokesman, declined to comment on details as he walked into a noon meeting at the governor’s residence with legislative leaders.
Miller, who has long advocated for shifting some teacher costs to the counties, said the amount the governor is proposing is not as much as he would like to see. Still, Miller described it as important progress illustrating leadership by the governor, a former Baltimore mayor.
“I would have preferred more,” Miller said. “I would have preferred, you know, having more money for the state’s resources, but the counties are an important part of the whole and the governor, being a former chief executive of a major political subdivision, is still of the counties, and he wants to make certain that they’re well taken care of.”
Maryland is one of the few states in the nation where the state picks up the entire tab for teacher pensions.
O’Malley is scheduled to make his budget proposal public on Wednesday. Maryland is facing a $1.1 billion budget deficit, and lawmakers have called on O’Malley to take steps to reduce half of the state’s ongoing deficit this year.
O’Malley also has been talking about raising revenues this session, including a potential gas tax increase and a hike in the state’s “flush tax,” a $30 annual charge on sewer bills to upgrade wastewater treatment facilities to reduce pollution in the Chesapeake Bay.
Miller said he had not yet heard concrete details about either one.
“I’m not certain what he’s going to do on the flush tax,” Miller said. “I know he’s going to increase the flush tax.
Miller said he would be meeting with the governor at noon, and at 4 p.m. The governor has a 4:15 p.m. bill signing scheduled for emergency legislation that redistricts five Somerset County commissioner districts.
