University system expected to see $20M reduction

Governor stays mum on where agencies are finding $200 million in spending cuts

University advocates are making the case that the system’s budget should not be touched.

The cuts, at a time when the University System has record high enrollment, would ‘‘impact our ability to serve students who want to come to the system,” said William E. ‘‘Brit” Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland. ‘‘That should be a concern for all the state.”

Cuts would affect each institution differently, but could include leaving faculty vacancies unfilled, creating larger class sizes and forcing the cancellation of some classes, as well as cutting financial aid and deferring facility maintenance, Kirwan said.

Not having the option of raising tuition ‘‘certainly makes the fiscal noose tighter,” he said. ‘‘Having said that, nobody likes to see tuition rise because that complicates accessibility and affordability.”

Higher education officials have submitted their explanation of what the cuts could mean and are waiting to hear how much they have to cut, Kirwan said.

O’Malley (D) is still deciding where to make the cuts, and spokesman Rick Abbruzzese said the governor has no timeline to make those cuts public.

On May 10, he ordered his Cabinet secretaries to come up with $200 million in cuts within 30 days — $25 million from this year’s budget, which ends June 30, and $125 million from next year’s.

Most of the cuts are expected to go before the Board of Public Works, a three-member panel to which the governor belongs.

O’Malley is not expected to attend Wednesday’s meeting because he is in upstate New York fishing with his son, William. The next meeting is scheduled for July 11.

The state faces a $1.5 billion budget gap for fiscal 2009, which begins July 1, 2008. There is a sense around Annapolis that lawmakers will be summoned to the State House later this year to craft a revenue package O’Malley can use to build his 2009 budget, which he must present to the legislature in January.

Officials from several departments, contacted last week, refused to describe their proposals with any specificity, or even to speak in general terms about the scope of cutbacks.

‘‘The governor is looking at all these things himself. Out of respect, I’m being careful about what I say,” Thomas E. Perez, secretary of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, said last week.

On Sunday, Baltimore Sun columnist Laura Vozzella published a memo sent from O’Malley’s public information office asking Cabinet secretaries to refer reporter questions to the office, which has answered few questions about the cuts.

After The Gazette asked about the $20 million cut to the University System, Abbruzzese confirmed it.

To come up with $200 million, departments could see fleet reductions, positions lost or programs cut. The budget targets are percentage-based for the agencies, although no official would reveal the actual percentages.

The governor’s staff met with key legislative leaders last week.

‘‘I believe they’re still working through the where and how and et cetera of the specifics of the cuts,” said Senate Budget and Taxation Chairman Ulysses Currie (D-Dist. 25) of Forestville.

The effort is likely to include $8 million to $10 million in savings from closing the Maryland House of Correction in Jessup. O’Malley closed the 129-year-old prison in March after a correctional officer was stabbed.

The Department of Juvenile Services, which received $21.5 million in supplementary appropriations earlier this year, will be asked to contribute less, Abbruzzese said.

But higher education had been the focus of an O’Malley campaign promise last year not to raise tuition. The General Assembly this year approved a tuition freeze for the 2007-2008 academic year, the second such freeze in a row.

Sen. Patrick J. Hogan, vice chairman of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee, said he held off a vote on the tuition freeze bill until the committee finalized the state’s $30 billion operating budget.

‘‘I didn’t think it was fair to say, ‘We’re going to cut your budget and we’re not going to allow you to increase tuition,’” said Hogan (D-Dist. 39) of Montgomery Village, who is heading a commission examining higher education funding in Maryland.