Advocates are bracing for what they fear will be deep cuts in state funding for programs that serve as a lifeline for Maryland's poor, disabled and homeless.
Among the first programs to be cut, effective tomorrow, are child care services at 14 substance abuse treatment centers in Baltimore. The program was budgeted at $1.4 million a year.
"This is just going to create obstacles to treatment," said Dr. Peter L. Beilenson, Baltimore's health commissioner. "It's criminal to drop this; it's such an inexpensive service."
Advocates say the budget cuts - aimed at addressing a projected $1.8 billion budget deficit over the next two years - come at a particularly bad time. A sagging economy and changes in welfare laws are creating greater need among poor families for help with food, clothing and shelter, they say.
"Obviously we're deeply concerned because what we're seeing is this incredible increase in need from people whose monthly or biweekly paychecks are not enough to make ends meet," said Alma Roberts, executive director of the Center for Poverty Solutions in Baltimore.
Roberts and other advocates say they plan to fight attempts to address Maryland's budget woes by cutting programs that help the poor. "We have huge battles in front of us. So, we're galvanizing," she said.
Frank Satterfield, director of the Glenwood Life Counseling Center, a drug treatment center in Baltimore, said programs such as his save the state money in the long run.
"I realize the state has a deficit, but there has to be another way to do this than balancing the budget on the backs of the poor, again," he said.
The state Department of Human Resources has been instructed to cut about 2.8 percent of its overall budget of $1.6 billion for this fiscal year, according to DHR officials.
However, because cuts are coming in the middle of the fiscal year, DHR officials face cutting about twice that amount to meet the 2.8 percent target for the year. The fiscal problems are further compounded by a budget deficit the department is running.
And much of the budget is off limits to cuts because it provides money for legally required services and to pay for what are regarded as "core services."
DHR Secretary Emelda P. Johnson said core services are those - such as foster care - that go directly to "protect at-risk children and fragile families." She estimated about 75 percent of the agency's budget goes to pay for core services.
Johnson met with advocates and service providers last week, asking for help in deciding which services might be cut.
But that effort was rebuffed, said Charlie Cooper of Citizens' Review Board for Children, who was at the session.
"Advocates and service providers are not going to be involved in deciding what is to be cut," Cooper said. "We're going to go to the powers that be and try to keep from being cut."
Johnson shot down one rumor that the DHR plans to eliminate a $23.5 million-a-year program known as the Temporary Emergency Medical and Housing Assistance Program.
The program provides about $185 a month to about 13,000 disabled individuals each year while they wait to qualify for federal Social Security Income disability payments.
Gov. Parris N. Glendening tried to eliminate the state program during a budget crisis in 1995 but restored it after an outcry from advocates for the homeless.
"It goes to our core services," Johnson said. "It is protected and will not be touched based on what I know today."
But the ax is falling on other programs, such as child care at drug treatment centers.
Satterfield said the program involves child care for parents while they attend drug treatment sessions.
He said some parents wouldn't come to treatment because they had no one to care for their children or had no safe place to leave them while they were gone.
"This was a very abrupt elimination," he said. "We will keep ours open through Dec. 31, but beyond that it is uncertain."