Executive and legislative leadership broached the hard subjects of potential tax increases, budget cuts, cost shifts, and other tough decisions that will need to be made as the state faces a structural budget shortfall at the 2024 MACo Winter Conference last week.

An article in Maryland Matters offers key insights and quotes from the presentation.

On potential cuts or cost shifts, Chief Legislative Officer Eric Luedtke noted that the Administration is carefully weighing its options and the impacts its decisions may have:

“I don’t think you’re going to see anything of the scale of the Great Recession shifts,” said Luedtke. “…Our challenges in the Transportation Trust Fund, at least in this year, are much more significant than our budget challenges and I think it’s a little early to answer that question. The governor will be releasing his proposed budget in early January. But I can assure you that in all of the conversations we’re having internally in the administration, we take very seriously the impact of any decision we make on the governor’s proposed budget.”

Tax increases are possibly also on the table, though the House and Senate may not be on the same page with when or how to move forward with any increases. Delegate David Moon, who serves as House Majority Leader, shared that there has historically been more open to increasing taxes. Senate President Pro Tem Malcolm Augustine was more hesitant to discuss the need for tax increases at this point in time. However, both chambers appear to be in consensus that hard decisions will need to be made:

“If you’ve looked at the history of the House, the House has generally been okay with trying to do some grown up things on this [taxes],” said House Majority Leader David Moon (D-Montgomery). “There’s an open question about whether we’re in a consensus time and are going to reach a consensus time on this.”

Moon said it may be time to “pull up some grown-up pants and do something” or resort to “living within our means” and accepting cuts.

…

“We’re going to need to take a look at … the governor’s budget … to see where there might be gaps and where we think our priorities are,” said Senate President Pro Tem Malcolm Augustine (D-Prince George’s). “I think it’s really premature actually to start to talk about [taxes] at this time, because we really don’t yet know. I don’t think that we’re actually in a place today to be able to do that.”

For more information read the full article in Maryland Matters:

Tough decisions, possible tax increases cloud coming legislative session