Prince George’s County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks (D) wants to freeze more than 800 county positions, cut agency budgets and draw down rainy-day funds to fix a projected $171 million budget shortfall for the 2025 fiscal year.
Washington
Alsobrooks proposes freezing 800 county positions in tough budget year
Alsobrooks, who is running for U.S. Senate, said difficult decisions had to be made for the $5.46 billion budget she unveiled Friday, which confronts dwindling federal aid and higher interest rates in addition to increased obligations.
“This year’s budget includes cuts to almost every county agency except for public safety and the Prince George’s County public school system,” she said. “Most departments will see a decrease in dollars year over year, and some programs and initiatives will face reductions.”
Prince George’s isn’t alone in grappling with a confluence of challenges from the pandemic recovery, dwindling federal aid and increased expenses. The state also is facing a round of belt-tightening, as lawmakers’ ambitions collide with lackluster economic growth. State House lawmakers on Friday released a $1.2 billion package of proposed taxes, tolls and fees to avoid cuts to programs, including a landmark education initiative that Alsobrooks has singled out as a major cost driver for Prince George’s.
“I’ve been talking with my counterparts across the state, and we’re all having the same difficult decisions and the same challenges,” Alsobrooks said.
The county is again dipping into its reserves to help make ends meet, but the request is less this year, at nearly $33 million, which Alsobrooks said is designed to protect the county’s Triple-A bond rating. Last year the county reached for $56 million. She also shifted spending to overcome a $60 million budget shortfall.
But those maneuvers weren’t enough to ward against increased costs and coronavirus reverberations, and the county’s long-term projections show more challenges. In January, the county’s Spending Affordability Committee predicted that structural challenges could leave Prince George’s with a deficit of up to $407 million within the next five fiscal years.
Similar to last year, nearly 62 percent of the county’s operating budget goes toward education, 20 percent goes to public safety, and the rest covers government services, such as college and library spending and infrastructure development.
Alsobrooks has resisted asking county residents to pay more; Prince George’s is seeking to lower the burden on property owners by luring more development, in hopes of diversifying its tax base.
She said she’s pressed for more flexibility from state lawmakers in how the county may spend select tax proceeds that have by law been largely earmarked for schools.
“I have specifically avoided raising taxes,” she said, casting her efforts in Annapolis this year as a way “not to further burden our residents and to make sure that they get the services that they have come to expect.”
Lawmakers have so far indicated support for bills she requested to allow Prince George’s to exercise discretion over money generated by the local telecommunications and energy taxes. The taxes brought in a combined $88.4 million in the 2022 fiscal year, county records show, with nearly all of that going to operating expenses for Prince George’s County Public Schools — the second-largest school system in Maryland.
That money previously had not counted toward Prince George’s required contributions under the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, a landmark state education plan aimed at ensuring that Maryland schoolchildren have equal access to quality education.
Ahead of Friday’s news conference, Alsobrooks said in a letter to the Prince George’s County delegation in argument for the legislation that her office had already made $100 million in reductions in anticipation of a shortfall.
To avoid affecting current county employees, Alsobrooks said she froze positions, a choice expected to have trickle-down impacts on residents.
“[That] means that we have fewer people doing more,” she said.
Alsobrooks built her budget proposal on the assumption that the county would be granted control of the local telecommunications and energy tax proceeds; the legislation is in the hands of the state Senate.
“We would have seen much more dramatic cuts if we had not been able to have that flexibility,” she said.
Despite the dour forecast for the county’s financial future, Alsobrooks said she made targeted investments in the safety and health of the county, by increasing the Prince George’s County Police Department’s budget 2 percent, or $7.6 million. The growth in the agency’s budget includes funding for 100 recruits. She also allotted nearly $280 million to the fire and emergency services department, which also would fund 100 recruits and a paramedic program.
The budget also includes about $104 million for health and human services, a priority for Alsobrooks, about $21 million of which goes to support mental health, addiction and substance abuse programs.
County Council Chair Jolene Ivey (D-District 5) said the council will work closely with the county executive’s office to pass the budget for the new fiscal year, which begins July 1.
“We’re going to spend the next couple of months really going through it line by line, and trying to make sure that we’re all in agreement on the best way forward for the county,” she said. “We’ve all had to really look at the budget and be more fiscally conservative because once you know what we have to deal with, we just can’t go spending money willy-nilly. You have to make sure that you’re being responsible.”
Beirut, Lebanon – On Tuesday, representatives from Lebanon and Israel met at the US Department of State in Washington, DC – the first session of a two-day round of negotiations that Lebanese negotiators hope will end an invasion of their country.
The negotiations, which started at 9am local time (13:00 GMT), come as Israel’s invasion of Lebanon pushes deeper than at any point since the year 2000 and as Hezbollah and Israel continue to trade attacks. Israel has killed 3,468 people in Lebanon since March 2, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health.
With the war raging on, what do Lebanon and Israel have to discuss and will the talks lead to an end of the Israeli assault?
Here’s everything you need to know.
What will Israel and Lebanon discuss?
Similar to past meetings, the two sides are ostensibly looking to come to some kind of deal following fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, with strong doubts it will be achieved.
Lebanon’s government is still pushing for a total ceasefire. However, as talks started, Israel was striking various parts of southern Lebanon. Lebanon is also trying to get Israel to withdraw from Lebanese territory in the south, so that more than 1.2 million displaced people can return home, and so the state can resume finding a way to disarm Hezbollah and rebuild areas devastated by Israeli attacks.
Israel is meanwhile looking to get assurances that Lebanon will disarm Hezbollah, a prospect analysts say Israel knows is complicated by the continuation of its military operations and occupation of swaths of southern Lebanon. Instead, Israel appears to be trying to fuel sectarian tensions inside Lebanon, leading to chaos and internal strife.
What has happened so far?
An initial meeting took place in April between Israel and Lebanon’s ambassadors to the United States. A second round took place in May with a larger delegation on both sides.
On Friday, a meeting took place with Lebanese and Israeli military representatives, while Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese group, is not involved in the meetings.
Israel claimed the two sides found common ground in that they both wanted to see Hezbollah disarmed. Some Israeli officials suggested there may soon be trade agreements and an exchange of tourists between the two countries. Lebanon, however, said it preferred to find a deal closer to the 1949 armistice agreement between the two countries.
In the last meeting, Beirut reportedly outlined the damage done by Israeli attacks since the 2024 ceasefire agreement and presented detailed maps showing homes destroyed or razed by Israel.
Is there a chance for a ceasefire?
That remains to be seen, but for now, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country’s military would continue attacking Lebanon.
On Monday, Netanyahu announced that attacks on Beirut’s southern suburbs would resume, despite a ceasefire. Apart from two targeted attacks, Israel has not struck the suburbs, known as Dahiyeh, since April.
Iran, which has attempted to include Lebanon in a wider ceasefire between themselves, on one side, and Israel and the US on the other, then intervened by threatening to attack northern Israel.
US President Donald Trump reportedly intervened to stop Israel’s attacks. He announced another ceasefire, after his previous announcement of one between Israel and Lebanon on April 16, after claiming he had gotten the approval of Netanyahu and spoken to Hezbollah.
“There will be no troops going to Beirut, and any troops that are on their way have already been turned back,” Trump announced on his social media platform, Truth Social.
But attacks from Israel and Hezbollah are continuing.
How do Lebanese people feel about the talks?
Not everyone is on the same page.
Some Lebanese support the talks and say they are the only option the state, which has little leverage, has. Among those who believe direct talks are the best way forward are Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam.
“There is no option other than negotiation,” Aoun said in a statement on Tuesday.
Others, however, oppose direct talks. Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and his allies, Hezbollah, have said indirect talks are preferred and that negotiations cannot be conducted while attacks are ongoing.
How are Iran and the US connected?
Israel and the US attacked Iran on February 28, killing the country’s longtime leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran is Hezbollah’s primary benefactor, and two days after Khamenei’s assassination, Hezbollah fired six rockets towards Israel on 2 March.
Hezbollah’s response brought a huge response from Israel, who have crossed the Litani River – the supposed buzzer zone in southern Lebanon it had created – towards the Zahrani River.
Despite a 2024 ceasefire, Israel had never stopped attacking Lebanon, while Hezbollah had only responded once in December 2024.
Iran has attempted to include Lebanon in the ceasefire deal it has with the United States and Israel, who say this theatre is not part of the agreement.
Although Trump has now announced a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel twice, the invasion of southern Lebanon continues.
Are there other actors involved?
Gulf states have also intervened. Saudi Arabia has been working behind the scenes to get Lebanon’s leadership – Aoun, Salam and Berri – on the same page. Meanwhile, analysts say Saudi Arabia and Qatar engaged the Trump administration to stop an escalation in Lebanon.
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A contract worker was killed by a falling tree on Monday afternoon in Washington County, officials said.
The Washington County Office of the Coroner said in a news release that the contractor was killed after the tree fell on them around 4 p.m. The worker, who was not immediately identified, was hired to cut down a tree at a residence on Lynn Portal Road in Canton Township, and it fell in an unintended direction, killing the person, the coroner said.
No other information was immediately released on Monday evening. The Greene-Washington Regional Police Department and the coroner are investigating.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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