He says that could result from proposed federal budget cuts.
Frederick County Delegate Jesse Pippy
Annapolis, Md (KM) Maryland’s budget situation is expected to get worse, according to the State’s legislative leaders. Currently, the state is experiencing a nearly $3 billion deficit. “The House of Delegates is going to have an opportunity to amend the budget first. And they are likely to make that budget worse. It’s unlikely the budget will get better as far as any tax relief. So we’re waiting to see what those changes are,” says Frederick County Delegate Jesse Pippy.
Earlier this year, Governor Wee Moore introduced his fiscal year 2026 spending plan totaling $67.3 billion dollars with a $3 billion deficit. The Governor has proposed $2 billion dollars in spending cuts.
Pippy says he’s opposed to any increases in the taxes or fees to help erase a budget deficit. But that leaves only spending cuts as an alternative. “Three-billion-dollar deficit is approximately 10 percent of our $30-billion-dollar operating budget. In theory, you would have to cut 10 percent off the top of every agency which is a significant amount of money,” he says. “By the way, the deficit is expected to balloon to $6.2 billion with the oncoming years.”
He says one challenge facing the budget has to do with what’s going on at the federal level. The Trump Administration is calling for cuts in federal spending and that could impact states like Maryland. Pippy says the state receives 33 percent of its funding from the federal government, and some changes could come between now and late next month. “So what that could mean is we could actually have an extended session. because the {Maryland} Constitution permits us to extend the session 30 days in order to pass the budget. So there’s a lot of moving pieces right now,” says Pippy.
The federal government is currently operating under a continuing resolution passed by Congress in December. It’s scheduled to expire the day after March 14th, 2025, and Representatives and Senators will need to pass a budget or another continuing resolution to keep the government going.
Pippy says he and other legislators will do what they can to balance the budget for fiscal year 2026. “Taxpayers have an expectation—a basic expectation—that their lawmakers and representatives will live within their means; that they’re fiduciaries of the taxpayer dollars. And it is clear that some legislators, unfortunately, have not been. And we’re hoping to fix that.,” he says.
By Kevin McManus