GOP push for hiring freeze falls flat with Moore

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ANNAPOLIS — Responding to a Republican senator’s call for a government hiring freeze, Gov. Wes Moore pushed back and said that vacancies have in recent years seriously hindered state services.

The governor’s comments came during a hearing with the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee on his budget reconciliation plan, which includes law and policy changes necessary to balance the state’s budget and, this year, features the governor’s expansive but controversial tax reform proposal.

Sen. J.B. Jennings, a Republican representing Baltimore and Harford counties, has called for the governor to stop adding new positions, enact an immediate hiring freeze and eliminate unfilled positions, except in departments for public safety and first responders, as part of a plan he said would save the state nearly $90 million.

Jennings said during Friday’s hearing that he was “kind of shocked” the governor had declined to implement a freeze and instead left hiring decisions up to the secretaries leading state agencies.

“In the short term, we’re trying to get this budget balanced, we don’t necessarily have to hire those positions,” he said during the hearing. “Let’s just get through this storm that is on the horizon.”

Moore acknowledged “it’s a very fair point” that Jennings raised, but he said that vacancies predating his time in office have led to basic state government functions not being performed. The governor mentioned staffing shortages in law enforcement and corrections departments that have threatened people’s safety and in the Department of Labor that led to people waiting up to 16 months to receive unemployment insurance benefits.

Moore and his team have repeatedly blamed shortcomings in state agencies on the number of vacancies left by former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan and his team, and he has said that his administration has looked to fill open positions while not increasing overall state spending.

“We had massive depletions that we knew had to be addressed because you had to have a state government that actually functioned,” Moore said.

Jeremy Baker, the governor’s chief legislative officer, added during the hearing that vacancies have hurt the state’s budget, too, as overtime costs have soared.

Friday’s hearing was the second in two days for the governor and his team on their budget reconciliation proposal.

On Thursday, Moore found himself defending his plan to change Maryland’s tax code, contending before a joint panel of House committees that his proposal will bring relief to most filers in Maryland.

More than 80% of taxpayers would see either a decrease or no change in their taxes under the plan, according to the comptroller’s office.

But the governor’s tax proposal, which would generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue at a time when the state is facing a multibillion-dollar deficit, has been short on support in the legislature, including among his fellow Democrats, who hold a supermajority in both chambers.