{"id":1323,"date":"2008-03-11T07:58:49","date_gmt":"2008-03-11T11:58:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=1323"},"modified":"2008-03-11T08:51:48","modified_gmt":"2008-03-11T12:51:48","slug":"budget-shortfall-where","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=1323","title":{"rendered":"Budget shortfall? Where?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ignoring the fact that he claimed he had to raise taxes on working Marylanders to balance his budget, Governor Martin O&#8217;Malley decided to create a new pay grade for some of his aides (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/article\/20080311\/METRO\/317607497\/1001\" target=\"_blank\">Washington Times<\/a> link);<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Gov. Martin O&#8217;Malley created a new pay grade for top members of his administration, including Public Service Commission Chairman Steven B. Larsen, according to documents obtained by The Washington Times.<\/p>\n<p>The discovery follows recent findings that Mr. O&#8217;Malley, a Democrat, gave more than $600,000 in pay raises to 47 of his top aides, even as state workers face potential cuts in pay raises.<\/p>\n<p>Under the new pay grade, EX91, Mr. O&#8217;Malley will pay four employees as much as $235,000.<\/p>\n<p>The previous cap for high-ranking employees of a Maryland governor was $159,632, but governors frequently exceeded the figure.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The creation of the new scale allows for more transparent and open reporting,&#8221; O&#8217;Malley spokesman Rick Abbruzzese said yesterday.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Saddle the tax payers with a big tax increase and then reward political cohorts with pay raises. Well, it just helps O&#8217;Malley become a one-term governor.<\/p>\n<p>Crossposted at <a href=\"http:\/\/redmaryland.blogspot.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Red Maryland<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ignoring the fact that he claimed he had to raise taxes on working Marylanders to balance &hellip; <a title=\"Budget shortfall? Where?\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=1323\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Budget shortfall? Where?<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1323\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}