State budget cuts adopted this week will hurt Howard County’s ability to provide health and higher education services, and to maintain roads, county officials said this week.

The Maryland Board of Public Works unanimously approved a cost-cutting plan Wednesday that reduced funding to Howard County by $8.3 million.

The state directly cut funding to Howard Community College and the Howard County Health Department. The remainder of the cuts, about $7 million, come from the county’s general fund, giving county officials the ability to shift money as they see fit.

County Executive Kenneth Ulman said he has been working with the county’s budget staff to decide how best to absorb the state cuts.

“I was surprised at how deep it is — they pretty much drained the highway user fund,” he said.

Ulman said the bulk of the county’s $820 million operating budget cannot sustain cuts. He said he is reviewing possible cuts to the Public Works, Public Safety, Recreation and Parks and Citizen Services departments, since areas such as education and debt service cannot be altered. He added that he is not considering a tax increase.

“We’re pretty limited in our options,” he said. “It’s tough. It’s tougher than it sounds just by looking at the numbers, but we will get through it.”

Ulman said he considers the county’s budget already to be lean. The county already has taken some cost-saving measures, he noted, including a four-day furlough plan in late December, a hiring freeze, reduction in take-home car allowances and the closure of the county television studio and print shop.

“We’ve, for the past two years, looked for every possible area where we can save,” he said. “So, there are a lot less places where we can absorb these cuts.”

To deal with the cuts, Ulman this week ordered all road resurfacing projects suspended. But “no other budget decisions have been made,” Ulman spokesman Kevin Enright said in an e-mail Thursday.

County health officer Peter Beilenson said the $654,269 cut from his budget was the sixth state reduction he has suffered in two-and-a-half years — a total of nearly $3 million in cuts. The Department’s annual budget now stands at $17 million, he said.

“There’s virtually no fat around here and we are clearly, with these cuts, cutting into bone,” he said.

Beilenson said he will eliminate 14 positions from his 150-person staff, including clinical, clerical and administrative positions. “Layoff notices will probably go out in mid- to late September,” he said.

Beilenson said the cuts will  reduce access to core services like prenatal care, addiction treatment, treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, family planning, tuberculosis treatment and refugee health.

“There will be longer waiting periods for all these types of services,” he warned.

In addition, cancer screening will likely be cut for uninsured county residents, he said. The screenings, he said, are “not readily available anywhere else in the county” and uninsured patients are “going to have nowhere to go.”

The Health Department will be able to continue its efforts to combat swine flu, Beilenson stressed, but many services will suffer.

“We are not able to do more with less,” he said. “It’s now, having to be frank about it, doing less with less.”

Howard Community College President Kate Hetherington said her institution began preparing for cuts in 2008 and has frozen about 30 open positions, including some faculty positions, in anticipation.

“We’ve been tightening and tightening our belts as this recession has continued to hang in there,” she said.
Howard Community College got hit with $653,174 in reductions, Hetherington said, leaving the school with a total operating budget of $86.7 million.

Part-time and hourly positions without benefits have been increased at the college, she said, and the college did not pay salary increases this year and has limited travel expenditures.

Hetherington said no layoffs are anticipated and the school did not increase tuition for its students either this academic year or the previous year. Nancy Gainer, a Howard Community College spokeswoman, said college officials had not yet decided whether to increase tuition next year, in light of the recent cuts.

In response to this week’s cuts, Gainer said, salaried employees have been asked to take on additional responsibilities with no overtime pay, equipment purchases are being deferred and evening hours at the school’s cafeteria and book store would be curtailed.

As for the road maintenance cuts, James Irvin, director of the Howard County Public Works Department, said 25 to 30 roads scheduled to be resurfaced this year will not be, which will save $2.4 million.

Most of the work was to have been done on roads in residential neighborhoods, Irvin said. Postponing the work could have implications for public safety, he added, as roads begin to break up in the winter when water in cracks freezes.

“At some point you have to do the work or it does become a safety issue,” he said.

The budget cuts come at a bad time, he added, because contractors eager for work in a bad economy are slashing their prices.

“It’s very cost effective to do resurfacing right now because contractors are hungry,” he said.

Staff writer Jennifer Broadwater contributed to this article.

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