January 16th, 2018 by WCBC Radio

Governor  Larry Hogan said he's hosting top lawmakers for breakfast on Wednesday as he prepares to send his 2019 budget request to state lawmakers. In a Tuesday press conference, he said the 2019 fiscal year budget "successfully slows the rate of growth while still funding our priorities." The full plan is set to be made public Wednesday.

WBAL reports the $17.7 billion budget, Hogan said, includes "historically high" education funding, including hundreds of millions of dollars for state universities and community colleges while limiting tuition growth to two percent.

Hogan said Tuesday it will include about $6.5 billion for K-12 education, a record amount for the state. Hogan says every single school system in Maryland will see increased funding. The governor says the state is investing an additional $365 million more in school construction, bringing the total to $1.4 billion.

The budget also contains $1.38 billion for the University of Maryland, an increase over last year.

The budget fully funds Program Open Space for the first time in more than a decade, Hogan said, while maintaining nearly $1 billion in cash reserves.

"Our budget accomplishes all of this without resorting to gimmicks, without raising taxes, without cutting service and without raiding special purpose funds as had been done in the past," Hogan said.

The governor highlighted the state's bounce back from the recession despite fiscal belt-tightening in Annapolis.

"We went from losing more than 100,000 jobs to gaining more than 130,000 jobs and we lowered our unemployment rate to 3.9 percent," Hogan said.

Maryland's unemployment rate is 24th lowest in the country, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Hawaii has the lowest unemployment rate (two percent), according to seasonally adjusted figures for November.

Hogan also talked about plans to lighten the tax burden for the middle class, retirees and small businesses while mitigating the impact of the federal tax overhaul. While Comptroller Peter Franchot is still working on a full analysis, Hogan said, the state could see up to $1 billion in additional revenue.

"Our goal will be to leave all that money in the pocket of hard-working Marylanders," Hogan said.

He welcomed news of such a proposal by Democrats in the General Assembly.