Maryland
Declines in revenue, federal aid drive cuts in proposed transportation projects – Maryland Matters
Transportation projects around the state will be put on hold as officials grapple with ongoing budget constraints and a growing list of expensive projects.
A combination of budget pressures has created a $1.3 billion funding gap over a six year period, which Transportation Secretary Paul Wiedefeld said forced his department to defer projects across the state.
“We just don’t have enough dollars to do what we have to do within our means. So that’s what we’ve had to do,” he said.
The agency Tuesday released a draft of its latest Consolidated Transportation Program, a six-year budget that contains $19 billion in projects around the state. Wiedefeld said the draft required tough choices to address the budget gap, a “historical issue” that continues.
Wiedefeld said the state’s transportation funding shortfall is driven, in part, by an end to federal COVID-19 aid. Other factors include inflation, increased construction costs, less than expected revenue from the state’s gas tax, and reduced federal funding.
“The biggest one we do is we take a look at our financial forecast and all the ups and downs that may occur in the financial forecast,” Wiedefeld told reporters during a briefing Friday. “And so, in doing that, what we learned was that some of the projections that we had in terms of the growth of some of our sources were not growing at that rate, particularly our largest source of revenue, the motor fuel tax. There were some others that were either not growing or remaining flat again, not growing to the level that we’d hoped for.”
Wiedefeld said that resulted in roughly a $350 million decline in projected revenues over the six-year period of fiscal 2025-2030.
“At the same time, our operating costs continue to grow at a rate a little bit more significant that we have projected,” said Wiedefeld, adding $300 million in projected costs over the six-year period.
Counties scramble for answers, options as state signals deferral of transportation requests
Additionally, lawmakers earlier this year restored proposed cuts in state aid to local governments as part of Highway User Revenues as well as proposed cuts to transit systems run by 23 counties and Baltimore City. Restoration of those proposed cuts added another $400 million over six years, Wiedefeld said.
“So those three things basically are our realities that put pressure on the financial forecast,” he said.
Finally, Wiedefeld said the amount of federal aid is falling short of expectations.
“We were pushing all the modes to really buckle down and see where else we could get federal dollars for delivering projects,” he said. “We were shooting for roughly 80% federal, 20% local match, overall for the program. Basically, we were not able to achieve that, and we’re probably not going to be able to achieve that into the future.”
Instead, Wiedefeld said the state now expects a 75-25 split. “That 5%, although it sounds small, is significant, obviously, when you think of the amount of federal dollars that would bring down,” he said.
The resulting lack of revenue means counties will see priority projects not already underway slowed down or paused
“In effect, projects that are into the future — larger projects that we want to construct — we have to slow those down in terms of the process to get them to construction, until we have available dollars to pick that back up,” Wiedefeld said.
One large project that could suffer is the proposed widening of the American Legion Bridge.
“So, on the American Legion bridge, obviously, we have the record of decision for this, you know, larger improvement there,” said Wiedefeld. “But given the stress that we’re under, we’re going to have the state highway particularly focus on the pure state of good repair issues around the American Legion bridge.”
The state applied for a federal grant to help pay for the costs of repairing “structural issues with the bridge,” he said. “So that’s where we’ll be focusing,” Wiedefeld said.
News of the delays was delivered to county leaders by Wiedefeld and transportation officials during the Maryland Association of Counties summer conference last month.
The transportation secretary said he will also seek to slow down the purchase of zero-emissions buses in the coming years, as some major bus manufacturers are having issues with the performance of electric buses, as well as availability.
Moore warns of difficult fiscal decisions ahead
A new clean diesel bus costs the state $750,000. A hybrid bus costs about $1 million each. A new electric bus costs $1.4 million each.
“So, as you play that over the program period, if you defer that, it actually saves a lot of dollars,” Wiedefeld said. “It allows us not to dig deeper into operating cuts, that we would have to do, or system preservation cuts.”
Wiedefeld said he will not request cuts to his department’s operating budget as he did last year when he cut 8% across the board. He will also not request cuts to county aid or local transit networks.
“What we’ve done is we’ve gone through all those projects, and we’re going to defer those projects at a logical deferred point,” Wiedefeld said. “So basically, some of those projects were in different levels of study. We want to make sure that they stop at a point where we don’t lose any of the effort that we had done, but we don’t have the available funds right now to continue those projects. What you’ll see in the capital program is basically those projects that will be deferred.”
A year ago, Wiedefeld proposed cuts to county shares of highway user revenues and to local transportation networks.
Highway user revenues — decimated in cuts more than a decade ago — had yet to be restored to previous levels. Proposed cuts, nixed this spring by the General Assembly, would have eliminated planned increases in future years.
“Even so, the fiscal 2025 funding for HUR (highway user revenues) falls significantly short of Maryland’s appropriate and historic funding levels, even without adjusting for inflation,” the association of county governments said in a post on its website. “This gap becomes even more pronounced when accounting for rising road maintenance and materials costs.”
The association said it would continue to seek restoration of state highway aid.
“MACo and county leaders will continue urging Maryland policymakers to advance a sustainable plan to address critical infrastructure needs across the state,” the group said in its statement. “Proper restoration of the HUR formula should be a priority in advancing solutions that create sensible and reliable support for all locally maintained roadways.”
It was a cloudy and overcast Memorial Day Weekend, not ideal for the beach and picnics, but a great one for fishing. Anglers across Maryland enjoyed a variety of different fishing adventures. Starting Monday June 1, fishing for striped bass will get a lot easier to understand when all waters of Maryland’s portion of the Read the Rest…
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WASHINGTON COUNTY, Md. (7News) — Traffic was snarled Wednesday morning along Interstate 70 in Washington County after a charter bus caught fire, the Maryland State Police (MSP) said.
Troopers responded to westbound I-70 at I-81 around 6:36 a.m. for the fire. MSP said the charter bus was traveling when a tire blew out.
SEE ALSO | 2-year-old dies days after Fairfax County crash that killed 2 adults
The driver pulled over, but then the bus started to catch fire. The driver and students were evacuated off safely, and no one was injured.
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The fire has since been put out. All westbound lanes remained closed at this time.
Maryland
Maryland stops juveniles from automatic adult charges for many gun, assault crimes despite prosecutors’ warning
Maryland will no longer automatically charge some juveniles as adults for several serious crimes.
Governor Wes Moore signed the Youth Charging Reform Act into law on Tuesday morning.
Supporters praised it as giving young offenders a second chance, but opponents—including many prosecutors—said it gives young offenders a free pass.
The impact of reform
Juvenile crime has alarmed many across Maryland. Video WJZ Investigates obtained earlier this month shows a convenience store robbery in Baltimore, with suspects as young as 14.
But advocates for charging reform said the state treats young offenders too harshly and locks many of them up without judicial discretion.
They have been fighting for more than a decade to stop automatic adult charges for certain crimes—including for many handgun offenses and serious assaults.
They finally won a victory with the governor signing the Youth Charging Reform Act.
“Maryland was automatically charging kids as young as 14 as adults for cases that almost always—almost always in the super majority of cases—ended back into the juvenile court anyway but only months after being locked up in jail and many times in solitary confinement,” said Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Baltimore City Democrat. “Nearly a semester of high school is gone. For you and I, that might not seem like a long time, but for 14-year-old or a 15-year-old, that is a lifetime.”
Ferguson stressed a statistic long cited by advocates for youth charging reform.
“Here in Maryland, we charge more children as adults than in every other state other than Alabama,” Ferguson said. “This bill will change that. It keeps cases in the right court from the start, which actually and by the data makes us safer and is better for those young people.”
House Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk, a Democrat representing Anne Arundel and Prince George’s counties, echoed Ferguson’s comments at the signing ceremony.
Peña-Melnyk said it shows lawmakers’ “commitment to giving people a better life” and noted her own experiences as a prosecutor and a public defender.
“You need to give people an opportunity,” Peña-Melnyk said. “You need to give them second chances.”
Certain severe crimes including rape and murder still mandate adult charges.
The new law also keeps juveniles out of adult prisons, away from the “sight and sound” of adult offenders, with rare exceptions.
What the numbers show
State data revealed in 2025 that 303 Maryland youth were charged as adults for gun crimes. More than 200 were charged as adults with first-degree assault.
Only 58 of those weapons charges stayed in adult court, along with only 38 of the first-degree assault charges.
The fiscal impact report on the bill also showed a drastic change for state’s attorneys’ offices across Maryland.
Baltimore City will have to hire as many as 16 new employees, including 11 assistant state’s attorneys, to review the cases involving juveniles.
You can read the fiscal impact report here.
The law is also expected to address racial disparities, with a state analysis showing 77% of youth charged as adults in Maryland in 2025 are Black.
What prosecutors are saying
Many top prosecutors, including Baltimore City State’s Attorney Ivan Bates, believe the charging reform is misguided.
Bates, in his role as head of the state’s attorney’s association, told WJZ, “…The General Assembly chooses to ignore the data once again and pass legislation that will allow youth with guns who commit robberies and violent assaults to be given a free pass time after time when they are caught illegally carrying or using a firearm.”
Bates said prosecutors wanted the General Assembly to delay implementation of the reforms by three years to allow the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services to develop new programming to assist young offenders.
“Instead, our request was ignored, and the members of the General Assembly vilified us for it,” Baltimore City’s top prosecutor wrote.
Howard County State’s Attorney Rich Gibson cited the case of 19-year-old Emmetson Zeah who killed a 15- and a 16-year-old outside the Mall In Columbia
Gibson said Zeah was given multiple second chances before being sentenced to life without parole last week.
“Our broader system failed him long before we arrived at this moment,” Gibson said. In the span of two years, this defendant had six separate contacts with the justice system. The majority occurred within the juvenile justice system, and yet none of those interventions altered the trajectory that he was on—nor did they accurately recognize the escalating warning signs that ultimately led us to where we are today.”
Gibson also told reporters, “Let me be clear, prosecutors across the state have never opposed appropriate juvenile diversion or rehabilitative efforts. We support keeping more youthful offenders in the juvenile system, but only once that system is equipped with the resources, the staffing, the accountability measures, and the evidence-based programming necessary to address specific factors that drive that juvenile behavior.”
Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger denounced the reform law last week at a debate hosted by WJZ and The Banner.
“I believe we should leave the laws the way they are in Maryland. Juveniles who commit violent crimes can be held accountable as adults,” Shellenberger said. “…We need to put more money into the juvenile justice system so that when they commit their first breaking-and-entering at the age of 14 or 15, we can get them the kind of help they and their family need, so that I don’t have to put them in jail for life when they’ve killed somebody at the age of 17.”
Public defender says reform “overdue”
“For more than a decade, Maryland has automatically routed children into adult criminal court based solely on the charge filed at arrest, without considering the child’s history, circumstances, or capacity for growth,” said Maryland Public Defender Natasha Dartigue. “Maryland does this for 33 separate offenses, which is more than any state in the country except Alabama. Yet 85 percent of those cases are ultimately dismissed or sent back to juvenile court anyway, often only after the children spend months in adult facilities without school, services, or meaningful family contact.”
While she praised the signing of the reform legislation, Dartigue noted there are still 26 offenses where juveniles are automatically charged as adults and called for further reforms.
“The evidence is clear: automatic adult prosecution does not make communities safer,” Dartigue said. “It makes children more likely to reoffend, families less stable, and communities fractured at public expense. Every one of those 26 pathways is a choice Maryland is making with full knowledge of what that choice costs. It is a system we must change.”
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