Budget Secretary: "Doomsday" Budget Not Balanced

It turns out the budget that lawmakers approved before ending their session Monday night is not balanced.

That conclusion comes in a memo sent to all state department heads on Friday, by Budget and Management Secretary T. Eloise Foster.

Governor Martin O'Malley's office provided a copy of the memo to WBAL News.

In it, T. Eloise Foster tells agency heads that the budget is still $70-million out of balance, and the Board of Public Works will have to make further cuts to the budget before June 30, to fulfill the state constitutional requirement for the budget to be balanced.

The memo reads in part, "...despite the inclusion of $512 million of doomsday cuts in the budget approved by the General Assembly on Sine Die , the FY 2013 budget is nearly $70 million out of balance. Given the imbalance and the uncertainty about the ultimate resolution, DBM is recommending to the Governor’s Office that it defer the signing of any bills that will reduce general fund revenues in FY 2013 until the imbalance is addressed."

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