Budget crisis looming

     The Carroll County Commissioners are likely to run into a major hurdle when they get started on the next budget, because you can look for the state legislature to make good on the threats they have been waving around for the past two years or more.
     Those who serve the counties and cities in Annapolis have conveniently forgotten that the reason they once had a state retirement plan for teachers was to ensure that poor counties would not have to deal with a total talent drain to richer counties because of the pay and benefits offered teachers.
     Salaries in Carroll County have historically been near the bottom when compared to other counties, but the quality of life in this area near the metro areas made the salary difference less of an issue; the retirement was comparable, and many educators would rather teach where they live than travel to other metro area counties for a few more dollars in the paycheck.
     But years ago, the state pushed hard to make teachers get out of the "old" retirement system. The sales pitch was that the pension fund was dwindling, the plan unsustainable, and the smart thing to do was change to the "new" plan, which was less lucrative for the employees.  It was still a state plan, though, and an equalizer.
     Now, though, leaders in the state capital are looking at huge deficits, and they have no idea how they're going to fund not only teacher pensions in the future, but other state employees as well. That's because for years, the state declined to keep up the long term funding for the plan, spending the money elsewhere today. You can do that for awhile, but sooner or later, you're going to have all those retirees out there counting on those pension checks.
     The federal government stepped in and mandated more accountability, and now the bill is about to come due. So, the state legislators are saying that the counties are going to have to put up the money that the state has been putting toward the pension plan.
     That could mean millions more in county taxes to pay for pensions.
     Teachers and other Board of Education employees have already been told, in a memo from Superintendent Stephen Guthrie on Dec. 7, that the cuts in spending will continue for the foreseeable future. Reductions in staffing, from the classrooms to the clerical staff at the board offices, are expected. Forget about raises again; and now jobs are on the line.
     On the TV news magazine 60 Minutes last week, the woman on Wall Street who warned of the housing bubble bursting two years before it actually did was saying that the next major hit to the US economy will be in state and local government shortages in paying the bills, the most significant one being the funding of neglected pension plans.
     Cut taxes?  I doubt it.