With a week to go until the end of the 2025 legislative session, the Maryland Senate engaged in hours of debate Monday over budget bills, with major education and energy policy waiting in the queue.

The Senate considered its version of the $67 billion budget Monday, sifting through 71 amendments presented by the Budget and Taxation Committee and five others offered by Republicans in the chamber.

Senate Budget and Taxation Committee Chair Guy Guzzone, a Howard County Democrat, said that the House and Senate worked to shave an additional $600 million in cuts from the $2 billion in Gov. Wes Moore’s original proposal.

As it was presented to the Senate Monday afternoon, Guzzone said the work he and the House Appropriations Committee did would shrink the $2.9 billion deficit projected for the 2027 fiscal year from $2.9 billion to $300 million.

“The impact of what we have done today — or what we will do today — will have a lasting effect,” Guzzone said. “Not just for (fiscal year 2026), but clearly into (fiscal year 2027) in a big way.”

Senate Republicans introduced amendments to reallocate transportation funding to local projects, implement hiring freezes, and mandate spending cuts for each executive agency, barring those that provide direct care and guardianship to people in the state’s custody.

The minority party offered an amendment similar to one offered by House Republicans, which would have eliminated the need for new and increased taxes.

The amendment was offered by Sen. Paul Corderman, a Republican representing Frederick and Washington counties. Corderman sits on the Budget and Taxation Committee.

The wide-reaching amendment would have cut $159.1 million in various Medicaid services and $10 million by lowering the income eligibility requirement for the Maryland Children’s Health Program from 322% above the federal poverty level to 275%. It would have also shaved $272.3 million in general funds, $48.3 million in special funds and $40 million in federal funds through a hiring freeze, the elimination of 25 positions at the Maryland Office of the Public Defender, and the denial of the 1% cost-of-living adjustment that government employees negotiated with the state.

Additionally, Corderman’s amendment would have cut $478.6 million in funding increases for the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future in the 2026 fiscal year. The freeze would have applied to the state share of the foundation program, compensatory education, full-day prekindergarten, teacher development, education effort adjustments, community school grants, students with disabilities, English language learners and grants for children most at risk of not succeeding academically.

Senate Minority Leader Steve Hershey, a Republican from the Eastern Shore, called the Blueprint a “massive education reform system that is based more on teacher salaries than student achievement.”

Guzzone asked the chamber to vote in opposition to the amendment for a number of reasons, but notably because the Senate would be addressing funding related to the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future in a different bill later on Monday.

He also said he found Hershey’s characterization of the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future “fairly upsetting” because people worked for multiple years to figure out how to best “elevate the lives of a lot of children.”

“What I hear is a discussion about long-term and short-term. The Blueprint is a commitment to the long term,” Guzzone said. “If we give up this year and we don’t have to, that’s a year and a cohort that will never know the benefits of that.”

“We’re trying to lift every child and every community up, and that means you have to make sacrifices,” he said.

Corderman’s amendment was rejected, along with the other four.

The budget’s companion bill, which creates new and raises existing taxes, was also debated Monday with an additional 31 committee amendments, including one that would impose a $5 fee on new tires.

The money collected, which would apply to each individual tire, would go toward the state’s Transportation Trust Fund for road and transit projects.

The Senate will likely give final approval to the budget and its companion bill Tuesday. Members of the House Appropriations and Senate Budget and Taxation committees will work out their policy differences on both in a conference committee later this week.

Under the state constitution, the General Assembly is supposed to pass the budget by the 83rd day of the 90-day legislative session, which lands on March 31. The legislature is still poised to send the balanced budget to Moore before the session’s last day next Monday.

Blueprint middle ground

The Senate will also take up Moore’s bill to amend the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future education reform plan Monday night and Tuesday.

In his initial proposal, the governor’s bill to alter the landmark, decade-long education policy sought to freeze funding increases for community schools for two years and pause the rollout of teacher collaborative funding — and the money associated with it — for four years.

The House passed the bill in early March, but not without restoring Moore’s funding cuts.

When they passed the bill, the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee sought to strike a balance between the governor’s and their House colleagues’ desires. They moved to keep Moore’s four-year pause on collaborative time while restoring funding increases for community schools or schools that receive Concentration of Poverty Grants.

The bill was debated on the Senate floor Monday and is expected to receive final approval from the chamber Tuesday. It will likely go to a conference committee to iron out the policy differences between the House and the Senate.

‘Control in the short term, in the midterm and in the long term’

With eight days to spare, the Senate will also begin debate on a comprehensive, three-bill package aimed at increasing Maryland’s energy independence and lowering utility prices over time.

The largest bill in the package, the Next Generation Energy Act, is sponsored by House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones and Senate President Bill Ferguson, both Democrats.

The legislation, which was introduced on the floor with 14 amendments, seeks to reduce the need to build additional transmission lines and allow the state to determine which sources — like natural gas, nuclear, solar, or other generation — its energy comes from.

Under the bill, the Maryland Public Service Commission would be mandated to issue a request for proposals to secure new energy generation sources on an expedited timeline equivalent to the amount required by coal and oil sources during peak summer hours. This would allow the state to phase off dirtier energy sources like coal and oil and maintain enough energy generation for when those plants eventually shut down.

The bill does not mandate the closure of existing oil or coal plants.

It also requires that any new energy-producing turbines be convertible to run on hydrogen when technology advances in a way that would fully support energy plants.

Addressing the press on Friday, Ferguson said that the package is meant to give Marylanders “more control in the short term, in the midterm and in the long term to lower utility bills and address the threat of climate change at the same time.”

As amended by the Senate Education, Energy and the Environment Committee, the legislation would also provide utility bill rebate payments based on usage by residential electrical customers during peak winter and summer months. The relief would come from the Maryland Strategic Energy Investment Fund.

Additionally, it would only allow utility companies to file multiyear rate plans if the Public Service Commission determines they benefit ratepayers. If utility companies overspend on materials and labor, they could not return to the commission to raise rates until the contract ends, potentially saving millions of dollars for Baltimore Gas and Electric customers. This portion of the bill would be retroactive, covering any multiyear rate plans approved since Jan. 1.

The newly amended bill also includes provisions regarding battery storage procurement, accountability for the price utility companies pay to replace gas pipes and contract labor, waste incineration, infrastructure for large load energy customers, energy company officials’ use of private jets, nuclear procurement, and changes to the Maryland EmPOWER program.

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