Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) said budget negotiations are ongoing and declined to set an “arbitrary” timeline for finalizing the 2026 spending plan. “Everyone will know there is an agreement when we have a joint announcement,” he told reporters Tuesday. (File photo by Bryan P. Sears/Maryland Matters.)
Fiscal leaders in the House and Senate continue to work toward a broad budget agreement but are not there yet, Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) said Tuesday.
With 21 days left in the session, the House continues to finalize its version of the budget introduced in January by Gov. Wes Moore. The continued work has stretched beyond traditional deadlines and a revised set of expectations Ferguson laid out for reporters late last month.
The two chambers continue to work together on a spending plan. Teams from the House and Senate, including House Appropriations Chair Ben Barnes (D-Prince George’s and Anne Arundel), House Ways and Means Chair Vanessa Atterbeary (D-Howard), Senate representatives and members of the governor’s staff were part of a meeting Monday night after lawmakers finished their work at the crossover deadline.
“I think we are very, very close,” Ferguson told reporters. “The framework is very nearly there. Once the House starts moving a budget, I think we’ll be able to have a conversation about where things are.”
Ferguson described a fluid series of ongoing budget negotiations between the House and Senate.
“On the broader question of whether there is an agreement on the budget, everyone will know there is an agreement when we have a joint announcement. And you know, we’re very close where things are very productive. There are very good conversations happening,”
Ferguson rolls out ‘scary’ list of cuts, favors broadening business sales tax list
But the Senate leader said it was important to not put the cart before the horse as both chambers “nail down the final details” and solidify support within their respective caucuses.
“You know, legislative chambers have to have votes,” Ferguson said. “I have to make sure I have 24 votes. The speaker has to make sure that she has her votes in her chamber. It’s important that we not put the cart in front of the horse, and that we really kind of do our due diligence to make sure that all the details are in place and that the numbers work, and that it’s a sustainable budget that people buy into.”
The “framework,” as Ferguson described it, is likely to be a general agreement on topline budget numbers including cuts and revenues. The work being done between the two chambers is expected to cut back on the number of issues that may have to be addressed in a conference committee.
In reaching that agreement, the budget will cross from the House to the Senate later than usual. The handoff will exceed Ferguson’s revised timeline announced weeks ago that had the budget in the hands of the Senate March 18 or 19.
That will not happen. Fiscal subcommittees in the House have yet to finalize recommendations. Full committees have yet to adopt those changes. All of that must happen before the budget can be taken up by the 141-member House in a series of votes and debates that can take a few days to a week.
Ferguson declined to reset expectations on when the Senate would receive the House version of the budget.
“I don’t think that arbitrary timelines are necessary right now. I think what we need to do is get to the best budget possible in this environment, and we will get done before the end of session, no matter what,” Ferguson said.
“I don’t think sort of setting a red line is the most important value,” he said. “The most important value is that we are working collaboratively to protect the six-and-a-half-million Marylanders who are worried about what’s ahead.”
Ferguson’s comments follow Moore’s public declarations Monday about a budget framework.
In comments to reporters, Moore declared that two taxes would not be part of a final budget.
One is a proposed per-ounce tax on sugary beverages. Despite polling well, the proposal to tax sweetened drinks faced a difficult road to passage.
Moore also announced that a “broad business-to-business” sales tax on services was also off the list. Surrogates for the governor later told reporters that any sales tax on services would likely also have to include those to individuals and businesses for Moore to support it.
Ferguson, in his comments to reporters, said some form of a sales tax on services would be included in the budget. The final form including services and whether it would expand beyond business-to-business services are open questions.
Ferguson said a hearing on the tax a week ago, where opponents to the services tax showed up in force, was “instructive.” But he repeated that the proposal remains on a list of options.
“I tried to reiterate from the beginning, it was a menu … you don’t eat everything on the menu, you pick and choose from the menu,” Ferguson said. “I think we were looking at a more narrowly tailored approach with the business-to-business that really is about a modernized economy.”