Maryland Senate President Calls For Resilience And The Hope Of Common Ground As Uncertain Years Are Ahead

By Raoul Dennis // PHOTOGRAPHY BY AMIR STOUDAMIRE

Maryland State Senate President Bill Ferguson delivered the hard news in his state legislative wrap-up at the Greater Prince George’s Business Roundtable meeting held May 14.

He tried to soften the blow but he wasn’t sharing anything that the room full of corporate business owners, first responders and leading executives didn’t already know: Maryland is facing fiscal woe.

He tapped into a scientific sign that fed his sense that most Americans are not as divided as one would think.

“A Pew poll that shows that 80% of Americans are in agreement on 80% of the issues,” Ferguson said. “That, to me, is the piece that we just have to keep finding ways to corner around in order to see a common community.”

Ferguson needed that glimmer of light because this year, his fifth year, was the worst he’d faced yet.

“In all of those five years, this was the hardest session, hands down. Of those issues, this year was by far the hardest,” he said.

Several challenges contributed to this year being the most difficult of the Senate President’s career to date.

“One was balancing a budget that had, at the time, a $2.7 billion deficit that rose within the first month of session to $3.3 billion that we had to close for the current year budget, FY26. Then that's where we added on a $4.5 billion structural deficit. We had to have that.

The second thing was the increase in utility bills and the cost of energy that Maryland is acutely primed to have a challenge around. We had to move forward with an energy package that at least started us down the road of trying to create more affordable, Maryland-made cleaner energy than what we have now.

Then three was to deal with what we knew --- but I don't think we ever could have understood the extent of and the pace of – were the challenges and uncertainty from the federal level. While it was not a singular specific thing that we knew we were going to have to do, there was an underpinning of the entire session of what was going to happen with the new administration in Washington, and how Maryland would be impacted.”

Ferguson acknowledged there was a lack of prep for how severe the federal government changes would be on Maryland. He likened it to Apple pulling back on its reliance on the iPhone despite its bullish earning power. It just didn’t seem like there would be a demanding need to diversify – until there was.

“By sheer geography and expertise and who we import into the state, most certainly in Prince George's, Montgomery, and Charles, [Washington] has been our bread and butter, and so we have relied on it.”

He continued:

“For every one federal job in Maryland, there are five contractors associated with that position. It's about 12% of all of our W2 withholdings are federal employees, and so on. Just the sheer work and job front.

The changes that we've seen and the cuts that we've seen, across the board then goes through or will have an enormous impact. It has not fully played out because a lot of them have been injunctions that have paused the actual operation. I think it's safe to say that we are anticipating a significant impact.”

Finding A Way

Ferguson noted solutions that were unraveled and arrived at.

“In our Department of Disabilities, we found about $500 million to $600 million came back in this last year above projections. The next one was our incarcerated population healthcare, which came in about $350 million above our projections. Then, finally, was our childcare substance program, which is a product of intentional actions. The other three are entitlements.

The fourth one was intentional. After COVID, we saw a number of childcare providers go under or stop operating.

We knew that to get people back to work and we needed to provide high-quality childcare, so we had to incentivize providers to come back, and we had to get a more generous subsidy for parents to be able to get those providers to provide care for kids. It worked. That's the good news. Parents did go back. They did use the subsidy.

It worked so well that it led to about $450 million above projections of what we had anticipated.”

The budget was balanced per legal requirement.

“At the end, we were able to balance the budget and balance next year and '27. We have work to do in '28. So long as we continue to make sure that- with the caveat that what happens at the federal level is going to be enormous uncertainty,” he said. “I think we'll know more this summer once we see what happens with the federal tax cut bill and how much that impacts states.”

The statesman also discussed increasing energy demands and the threat to health care.

Resilience and Hope

Bill Ferguson was raised in a household that was centered in political division. He uses those memories to find hope in Maryland’s future.

“My parents had very different political viewpoints on how the world should work, with my dad being the conservative, financial-focused businessman, and my mom being much more on the labor union side, understanding the importance of collective bargaining and people's rights,’’ Ferguson said. “In the '90s, those formative years, Bill Clinton was the president, and every single night, and I mean this, every single night at dinner, there was a fight with my dad saying that Bill Clinton was the antichrist, and my mom thought he was the second coming, and it was just like daily, he just changed each evening what the fight was about.”

The room shuddered with gentle laughter.

“At the time, I thought I would never go into politics, who would ever do this,” he said. “But lo and behold, here we are. I think the key message is that I learned very quickly is that people have different political views, but also find a way to love each other, and raise family. So, I try to bring those lessons that we are often more alike than we give ourselves credit for to the Senate.” Pew poll.