Maryland’s top fiscal officers cut more than $120 million from this year’s state budget on Wednesday, as officials warned that the first round of trims could be less painful than cuts that will be required in the future.
The Board of Public Works unanimously agreed to the cuts on Wednesday, which included unspent money for construction projects that will still move forward in future years and unspent grant money.
However, the most recent unofficial estimate of the current year’s revenue loss is between $900 million and $1.1 billion.
There are about six weeks remaining in the state’s fiscal year, which ends June 30.
“That’s just the beginning. We’re going to have significant reductions down the road,” Comptroller Peter V.R. Franchot (D), a member of the spending panel, said. “I don’t want to leave any false hope for people that this is going to be a minor bit of surgery. It’s a new fiscal reality that we’re going to have for the next couple of years.”
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Danielle Gaines over at Maryland Matters