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State agencies are being asked to consider eliminating programs as part of $200 million in budget cuts that Gov. Martin O'Malley is seeking, as revenues continue to come up short of expectations in a sputtering economy.

"I've encouraged agency heads to eliminate whole programs in this latest round of cost containment," O'Malley (D) said Monday after a news conference in Rockville, where he announced the creation of Maryland Biotechnology centers in Rockville and Baltimore.

O'Malley offered no details of possible cuts, but said that he already had reviewed one list of potential reductions and was considering another.

Agencies have until June 5 to submit their recommended reductions, which would be approved by the Board of Public Works in mid-July.

Last week's report from the Bureau of Revenue Estimates showed that general fund revenues collected through April 30 were $200 million short of a March estimate. The General Assembly used that estimate to develop the $14 billion fiscal 2010 budget that the legislature approved shortly before adjourning last month.

In a memorandum sent Friday, budget Secretary T. Eloise Foster asked that agency heads and chief financial officers develop plans to cut their budgets, including "eliminating programs and activities that do not directly impact critical services for Maryland families during these difficult economic times."

The memo also asked agencies to streamline operations, partner with "sister agencies to reduce costs," and consider "potential savings from rebidding contracts in this favorable procurement environment."

Midyear cuts by the Board of Public Works have become an annual rite since O'Malley took office in 2007. The administration has slashed more than $3.7 billion and 2,700 government positions, Foster wrote. Most of the positions were allowed to go unfilled.

In past rounds, agencies trimmed the edges of their budgets, O'Malley said.

"There has been a desire in the past to preserve every program, even if it crawls or limps along," he said, adding that he is glad that officials will not have to make deeper cuts, as they have in past rounds.

"There are signs of hope out there in the economy," he said. "I hope that it gets to a point where the economy will start to grow again and revenue will grow again so that we are not cutting important things that the government needs to get done."

April tax revenues were down 16.6 percent, or about $312 million, compared with April last year, Comptroller Peter V.R. Franchot (D) wrote in a May 13 letter to O'Malley and legislative leaders.

The number of millionaires filing by April fell by about one-third, Franchot wrote. Filers with incomes of more than $1 million are subject to a 6.25 percent tax bracket, which the legislature created last year.

The full impact of those tax increases will not be known until after the October filing extension deadline, when many upper-income people file.

"However, it seems reasonable to assume, particularly given the sharp drop in final payments, that there will be a significant decline in the number of returns with taxable income over $1 million and a substantial decline in the income reported on those returns when complete results are available," Franchot wrote.

Meanwhile, Maryland is not alone in revising its budget.

"It's a limbo dance that every state in the union's engaged in, going lower and lower and cutting more and more priorities," O'Malley said.