OCEAN CITY — Budget cuts alone will not resolve the state’s projected $1.5 billion deficit without a host of ‘‘really bad choices,” Gov. Martin O’Malley warned more than 400 municipal leaders this week.
O’Malley (D) made the comments in a speech to the closing session of the Maryland Municipal League’s annual convention here on Wednesday.
With a special session on the budget a possibility, many mayors are taking a wait-and-see approach and counting on O’Malley to remember his roots and promise to work with them when it comes to cuts.
‘‘I’m very worried, because that’s a big chunk of change,” said Greenbelt Mayor Judith Davis, adding that cities may have to raise property taxes. Greenbelt raised its property tax last year to cope with rising costs of services.
‘‘The bottom line is cities do depend on state funds,” Davis said. ‘‘We do depend on it to do a lot of the things that our cities really count on. It’s not just schools. It’s not just highways. It’s also parks, recreation, social programs, bonds to renovate historic buildings and things like that.”
Rockville Mayor Larry Giammo welcomed the prospect of a special session, arguing the state must address a structural imbalance created by a rural tax system that has not kept pace with Maryland’s increasingly urban needs.
If the state resolves its problems, it would be less likely to raid or cut back aid to municipalities, such as highway user revenue, as happened in the past, Giammo said.
The city of Rockville gets roughly $3.2 million from the state to maintain its streets, for example.
‘‘I think everyone was encouraged by the governor’s commitment to be a partner with municipalities,” said Anthony McCarthy, spokesman for Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon (D).
Dixon has already directed the city’s Finance Department to crunch numbers in search of possible cuts. ‘‘We think almost all of our crucial services are going to be impacted,” McCarthy said.
Frederick Mayor W. Jeff Holtzinger (R) said he prefers budget cuts to tax hikes, which could include a higher sales tax.
‘‘I’m more inclined trying to reduce spending, at least temporarily, than increasing taxes, but you have to reserve judgment until we know what the governor and legislature are talking about,” he said.
There is room for some local spending cuts, acknowledged Bowie Mayor G. Frederick Robinson, but if all of the state grants and other aid disappear, ‘‘we would have some major retrenching to do in our budget.”
O’Malley tried to allay those fears in talking to reporters after his speech.
‘‘I’m going to make choices that don’t involve just shifting the deficit down to local and municipal governments and hurting the quality of life of our people by reductions in those budgets,” he said.
The governor did offer several initiatives to give cities some aid:
*Helping local jurisdictions establish a crime data mapping and rapid response system similar to the Comstat system O’Malley established in Baltimore.
*Distributing a $1.5 million federal grant to help buy in-car cameras and computers for local police departments and other community policing initiatives.
*Adding $3.3 million to strengthen Maryland’s Collaborative Supervision and Focused Enforcement (CSAFE) program, which targets high-crime areas.
*Directing $750,000 to improve gang data sharing between local and state law enforcement organizations.
*Giving parole and probation officers remote access to their desktop notes and criminal databases.
‘‘We’re counting on the governor,” Greenbelt’s Davis said. ‘‘He says he’s going to work with us. We will work with this. ... But we know that this is now the second year of the marriage, and just like a regular marriage, things come up and we have to work them out.”
