January 16, 2008 |
|---|
LT. GOVERNOR BROWN: Governor, I want to thank you for your leadership, your service and your forward-looking vision to keep Maryland strong. And it's my pleasure to introduce my friend, our Governor, Martin O'Malley. (Applause)
GOVERNOR O'MALLEY: Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you everyone for being here. And, Lieutenant Governor Brown, thank you for your tremendous leadership in the course of this last year. And also in the formulation of this budget. The dollars that are in this budget, to address things like the workforce opportunities that come to Maryland because of BRAC, the ability to be the sort of people that we have most typically been throughout our history, to honor the service of those that have served in our Armed Forces and not to make excuses about how maybe some other level of Government should be doing that, are two things that I'm particularly grateful for you, Lieutenant Governor Brown, for giving us the sensitivity to make sure that we include in this budget and the vision to make sure that we include in this budget.
It's hard to believe a whole year has gone by. The last time that we -- that many of us met here, we had -- of course, Secretary Foster had all of, what, 24 hours to prepare these documents and no doubt, though, she had been working on them for months before. But, Secretary Foster, thank you for all the good work that you've done in formulating this budget.
Let me -- before I run through some of the highlights, let me try to take kind of a thematic run at what we've tried to do here and do sort of the top line facts about this budget and how it compares with past budgets and how it underscores where we're going and try to do it in a way that doesn't become overly burdened in bullets and program detail.
This year's budget that we submit is fiscally responsible. It restrains spending and it actually will come in under spending affordability. recommendations and it will have the smallest increase in ongoing spending in five years. And, most importantly, it makes progress on the issues that are most important to the working people of our State -- namely, better schools, safer neighborhoods, a better environment, better health care, and hopefully a better transportation system in the long run with these capital investments we're able to start making once again.
So to state it again, this is a fiscally responsible budget that restrains spending and allows us to get back to the urgent work of making progress for the working people of our State.
The goals of this administration this year are the same as the goals of the administration last year; to strengthen and grow our middle class, improve public safety and public education, and expand opportunity. The opportunities to learn, to earn, to enjoy the health of the people that we love as well as the health of the land, the air, the water, the Bay that we love to more people, rather than fewer.
And over the course of this last year we have made our State Government work again for the citizens of our State. We have taken performance measurement and accountability to the highest level that we've ever seen it in our State Government through the implementation of StateStat -- performance measurement applied to the very important functions of our State Government.
We are -- a few more of the details. In the course of the budget deliberations there was -- in the conversations that went on over the last year, a lot of those conversations began with a lot of tough cuts. And some cuts continued in the course of this budget.
This budget reduces projected spending by $550 million on top of the $280 million that was cut by the Board of Public Works last year. Let me say that again. This budget reduces projected -- (Phone ringing) -- whose was that? Was that you, Murray? You're allowed. You vote on the budget, ring away. (Laughter)
So this budget reduces spending increases by $550 million and that's on top of the $280 million in cuts that we applied in the middle of last year at the Board of Public Works.
Secondly, it eliminates 500 positions from State Government. It grows by only 4.09 percent, which is below the 4.27 recommended by the Spending Affordability Committee, keeping the O'Malley/Brown tradition of submitting budgets that are actually under rather than over Spending Affordability.
And it saves for our future. We are recommending that the rainy day fund will have a balance of $739 million at the end of Fiscal Year >09 and the budget provides for $210 million for future retiree health care costs. That huge liability that every State wrestles with, in terms of making sure that our retirees are protected and it's adequately funded.
Let me go through a couple of the pie charts that kind of lay out who we are and what we do here at the -- in your Maryland State Government .
The first one is -- it's always great when the charts coincide -- thank you. This is the operating budget for Fiscal Year 2009. It is a $31.5 billion budget. It is a 5.9 percent increase over 2008. General fund spending increases by 5.4 percent.
The budget is focused primarily on these key areas; health is 25 percent of it, K-12 education is 21 percent of it, and higher education is 16 percent, while transportation is 13 percent. This budget makes significant investments in education. This will be another year of record high funding for public education, the most important investment that we have in our future.
And it also makes important investments that I'll get into in a second in higher education and workforce creation and public safety.
Let's go to the capital pie chart. Total capital budget is $1.52 billion. The capital budget is heavily focused on education, health, the environment and public safety. All of these investments are intended to make Maryland stronger and increase opportunities available for our citizens from childhood through retirement.
On public education, last year with the help of the General Assembly, we made record investments in K-12 public education and school construction and we also were able to hold the line on what had been a number of years of back-tot-back increases in college tuition, which made -- which pushed college out of reach of the hands of most working people in our State.
So this year building on the progress of last year and important work that the General Assembly recently concluded, we are investing another record $5.3 billion for K-12 public education. That's $184 million more than last year. So this is a record level of spending. Last year was the record to date. This year will be $184 million on top of that record spending from last year.
And for the first time ever we have started to put into action and investment the geographic cost of education index, so there's $76 million as part of that. There are also $34 million in supplemental grants, so that no jurisdiction will actually see flat-funding of their State aid to public education.
There is $55 million going to keep pace with teacher retirement obligations and $2 million for the new seed schools, the public boarding schools, one in the Baltimore area, one in the Washington area.
Last year we invested $400 million for school construction to try to catch up with that huge backlog that was resulting in too many of our children going to school in these temporary learning shacks. And this year we are proposing the General Assembly approve $333 million in school construction. That would break the two year total, for those of you adding along, of $733 million.
On higher education the other day we announced part of this, I am asking the General Assembly to continue with another year of holding down college tuitions and trying to make college more affordable for the working people of our State.
According to data provided by the University System, the undergraduate tuition fees in Maryland were ranked as the sixth highest in the nation in 2004. Because of investments that we made together in the last two years, holding the line on tuition and making greater efforts together. In public education we were able to reduce that down to Maryland's ranking instead of being the sixth highest, we were down to 13th out of 50 States. With another year we anticipate that that will move us down a little further and get us closer to being affordable for more families in our State.
So all included -- we also included funding, of course, to expand access and achievement for all with the higher education investment fund. This was, as you recall, the legislature created the first dedicated stream of funding for public education in our State's history. $11.5 million will support the additional enrollment of about 1600 students. $1.5 million will narrow the achievement gap between under-represented students and the student body as a whole, and $18 million will need workforce capacity demands, things like expanding nursing and allied health programs, which we know we have a huge need for in our State, as well as meeting the opportunities for BRAC and also adult literacy programs. Something that we've lagged shamefully behind other States, in terms of our investment in that great unlocked potential of our people.
Community colleges, we are proposing an -- receive $81 million. That would be the largest capital allocation in the history of our community colleges. And those will involved projects in 13 campuses, 13 different jurisdictions throughout our State. And $29 million in operating funds, which will be an increase of 12 percent over last year.
Community colleges are probably the best bargain in Maryland for higher education. They are nimble, they are quick, they are responsive to market needs and the skills needs of people in this modern economy. And the Lieutenant Governor and I have both been totally impressed with the caliber of leadership at our community colleges and the terrific work they do to give us that first class workforce.
Speaking of workforce creation. You know there's three themes that we constantly talk about internally here in your State Government, as we sweat to make it work better. One of them is a more sustainable Maryland, in terms of the land, the air, the water we use. Another is improving public safety by better integrating all of our various security efforts.
But the third one is workforce creation. Everything that we do in terms of these big investments, beginning in preschool to kindergarten through high school, community colleges and four year colleges is about creating a first class workforce so that we can create more jobs and more opportunities.
There is $72 million in this budget for business development programs, including $18 million for small minority owned businesses, $6 million in capital funds for the neighborhood business development program, and almost $17 million in vocational rehab programs. That's an increase of about $2 million over last year.
We also are adequately funding inspectors to enforce a new living wage bill. There's $23 million once again we're asking for for stem cell research; $6 million for the biotechnology investment tax credit, and as well as other things like the nanotech biotechnology initiative fund and the expansion of the East Baltimore Biotech Park.
Let's move on to -- let me also mention here that on a couple scores, including workforce, there will be dollars because of the General Assembly's good work and the sacrifices of the people of our State, to help small businesses get their employees the healthcare coverage that's of a decent quality and that the small businesses can afford. So that will also be part of this budget proposal.
Let's go on to the environment, okay, sustainability. There is $156 million for nutrient removal from wastewater treatment plants that will be in this budget. There is $50 million for the Chesapeake Bay Restoration Fund, the 2010 Trust Fund if you prefer. $8.4 million for cover crops, we greatly increased that last year. We are, in essence, sustaining that investment again this year and hope to be able to do more as we figure out the policy considerations of that Chesapeake Bay Trust Fund.
There's $6 million for state of the art technology to reduce pollution from septic systems, $3 million for oyster restoration. Once again we are asking the General Assembly to join us in committing that every dollar of open space go to open space. That would include $46 million for programmed open space, $46 million for agriculture land preservation, $18 for rural legacy, $4 million increase for State parks, an additional $750,000 and three positions to expand fishery stock, assessment and restoration efforts, on top of the efforts that sports fishermen have already made to date.
And we're making significant investments again to strengthen our agricultural community
and family owned farms with $9.3 million to help tobacco farmers transition other crops, $3.8 million deficiency for gypsy moth eradication, did a tremendous amount of damage in Western Maryland last year, and $3.5 million once again for Marbidco, to develop new outlets for agricultural products here in the State of Maryland, an important part of keeping farming profitable and hopefully making farming even more profitable.
Energy, a very important aspect of our whole sustainability agenda is the energy; the type of energy we consume, the cost of it, and it's renewability.
This year we are providing new funding for energy efficiency and conservation programs because we need to reduce energy consumption in our State. There will be no significant and new power generation that will come up half as quickly as what we can do together by reducing our consumption rates of electricity with better conservation programs and energy efficiency. Reducing by 15 percent by 2015 is a big and ambitious goal.
But we have a number of legislative initiatives that we'll be introducing in the General Assembly on this and a few of them that appear in the budget are these. Additional staff at the Maryland Energy Administration to move that sustainable energy agenda forward. $5.5 million for weatherization assistance for low income homeowners. Also, there are recommendations coming out of the Green Building Task Force that we are going to be asking the General Assembly to implement that will require that new State buildings be of a certain level of energy efficiency, which only makes sense.
The Maryland Transportation Administration is also purchasing 30 new hybrid electric buses for the Baltimore Metro area, there are $621,000 included in the capital budget to construct statewide infrastructure. You know, we're been purchasing a lot of cars that can use ethanol in our State fleet. Unfortunately, we never made the investment in our fuel depos to dispense ethanol in our State. So we're now catching up with that.
Let's move on to probably what is the foundation of everything that we do as a free and civilized people and that is public safety. The safety of our citizens, the safety of one another, the safety of our families, of our kids.
We have a big problem in our State when, for all of our strengths, we are ranked the fifth most violent State in the union. And there's no reason for that. In our State there is no such thing as a spare American, every life is valuable, every life is important. Public safety is our foundation and even though many -- much of our public attention was focused on avoiding -- you know, a fiscal collapse of our State budget, given the huge deficit that we inherited -- we have nonetheless been very, very busy working to address the unacceptable level of violence that exists in our State.
Last year we proved that we could actually make our Government work again. You know, for years, in Maryland, anyone convicted of a crime of violence was supposed to have had taken from them -- in addition to their fingerprints -- a DNA sample, a simple swab from the cheek. Well, that was in the law, but that wasn't in the budget and, therefore, that didn't happen. And it hadn't happened for years. And as a result, there were some 24,000 DNA samples that had not been analyzed and had not been uploaded into that national database akin to a fingerprint database.
The result of which was that there were a lot of predators who should have been in jail and, instead, were on the street and committing crimes when we could have kept them behind bars instead.
So we were able last year to virtually eliminate that 24,000 backlog in DNA samples. Working together, last year we also ended parole for child sex offenders with Jessica's Law. We closed Maryland's most violent prison, the House of Corrections. Last week we announced new legislation that we are going to be asking the General Assembly to consider and approve that would have us join many other States, including our neighbors in Virginia, in requiring that modern day fingerprint of DNA to be taken -- not just after conviction, but actually at the time of arrest for violent offenders.
We are also using new GPS technology to better safeguard the lives of our most at-risk young people who too often fall victim to drug dealers, who are using our kids for target practice or as mules in their deadly trade.
Building on the success of last year there are a number of things in this budget. $13.5 million and 156 new positions in the Department of Corrections to properly and safely staff two new housing units at the North Branch Correctional Institution.
Secondly, the $2 million for investment in individually fitted stab-proof vests for our correctional officers. $5 million additional staffing for inmate health services and increased healthcare costs and, related to that, $3 million to expand HIV screening and treatment of inmates. In the past in our State, believe it or not, we had never screened inmates for HIV AIDS when they came into our prisons. We're going to start doing that now to control the spread of that disease.
And to improve parole and probation and make it part of our criminal justice system, there's a number of things that we are going to be doing.
I want to take a -- you know, maybe take a short detour here at the expense of being long-winded. It is amazing how much information we have in individual departments that don't talk to each other, whether at the State or local level about repeat violent offenders, who repeat crimes of violence -- again, again and again -- should be under the supervision
of our State, because they're out on parole and probation. They rack up arrest, after arrest, after arrest, after arrest before murdering another American in our State. And yet, we do virtually nothing to share information and to target that hardcore tiny little kernel of people that rob family members from us and we can't allow that to happen anymore.
We are, therefore, asking the General Assembly to support some efforts that we have underway.
$3.1 million and 53 additional positions for a new high-risk offender supervision program. What does that mean? That means that when people are out there on parole and probation, under the privilege of being out of prison and on the streets, that we are not going to permit them to commit crimes again and again and again before putting them back behind bars to finish the rest of their term or whatever time they're backing for the last violent crime they committed. I'll have more about that in the State of the State address.
We are also asking for $5.2 million for a comprehensive offender case management system spanning initial booking through parole and probation. You know, one person's story that I want to share with you, there was a person -- and, sadly, not an uncommon case -- as we were reviewing those who were charged with murder in our State over the last year. One of them was an 18 year old individual who had a history of guns and violence in his juvenile record. He committed five crimes as an adult and was out on the street, on a -- well, probation, therefore, not abiding by the terms of the probation, if he kept getting arrested time and time again. But arrested five times before he murdered another human being.
And I asked parole and probation, well, what do we know about this person, in addition to his adult record -- he'd only been an adult a year -- and I said, what about the juvenile record? And they said, well, we're not allowed to look at that and, even if we were, we can't.
Well, neither of those things is true. We're masters of our own future and there is -- absolutely defies common sense that when we know from a person's past history that they are a risk of committing violent crimes and shooting other individuals, that we don't allow them to commit crime after crime after crime without pulling them off the street and doing everything in our power to protect the public safety.
So we're requesting $5.2 million for a comprehensive offender case management system, which will span initial booking through parole and probation. We're asking for similar dollars to update the case management that they have at juvenile justice, which I'll move on to next.
In this budget is $1 million for the global positioning surveillance system that we unveiled the other day with Mayor Dixon in the City of Baltimore.
There is $650,000 to expand Operation Safe Kids, both in Baltimore City and Prince George's County, where we have the greatest opportunity to save young lives, that's, in essence, an intensely managed case management system that's done by local governments in partnership with the Department of Juvenile Services.
$1 million to support implementation of automated case management and new funds, $5.7 million, to design new treatment and detention centers at the Cheltenham Youth Facility. And I believe we'll have more on that tomorrow.
It has been, my friends, decades and decades and decades since we have invested in having the proper facilities for juvenile justice. Today we still send too many of our kids all over the country to other States.
We are also asking for the following items in both the General Assembly -- one is $1.3 million for new lab equipment and five new positions at the State Police lab, $5.2 million for computer automated dispatch and records management system to improve officer safety and information sharing, $8 million for improved port and transit security, $3.6 million for replacement of 171 State Trooper vehicles -- about half the amount that I think they requested. $1.8 million for the installation of mobile data computers in Trooper vehicles, $14.8 million for a new State Police barracks n Hagerstown. We weren't able to afford to do that last year, we need to do that. $33.6 million for the purchase of three new State Police helicopters, part of the effort that the General Assembly championed.
And, finally, let me begin where the Lieutenant Governor started us off and that is assistance to our veterans and our National Guardsmen and women who are returning from overseas from the Global War on Terror, whether it's Afghanistan or Iraq.
We are requesting $800,000 for a new reintegration program to assist Maryland National Guard members returning from overseas deployments. Many of them come back and you can imagine with deployments being extended, some of them have to look for new jobs when they come back, some of them, sadly, have to get vocational and rehab training because of the injuries they've suffered for us in their service to us.
We're also requesting $373,000 to open two new regional centers for veterans services programs to assist veterans in accessing benefit and compensation claims, an additional $3.5 million to establish a new program to address the gaps in behavioral health services for veterans in rural areas.
And $150,000 to eliminate the waiting list that we have for the veterans scholarship program that was enacted, I believe, a year or two ago and sadly there's been -- as the war continues -- the popularity of that program and eligibility for it continues to expand.
So, anyway -- and that's the nuts and bolts, those are the highlights. And there's other -- there's greater detail, you can all rest assured.
But again, recapping, we presented in this year's budget, a budget that restores fiscal responsibility. Spending affordability, we come in under spending affordability. It grows ongoing spending at the smallest amount that it has in the last five years. And it gets Maryland back on the path to making progress on schools, on public safety, on safer neighborhoods, and improving transportation and healthcare.
And I'd be glad to answer any questions you might have.