Furloughs would affect O'Malley as well

If Gov. Martin O'Malley's (D-Baltimore) furlough proposal gets implemented, the governor himself will be a participant.

"Regardless, he will be taking those five days in unpaid leave," O'Malley deputy press secretary Shaun Adamec told PolitickerMD.com. Adamec predicted the governor would continue working despite an unpaid leave, but wasn't certain about O'Malley's plans. Adamec added that the talks about furloughs were still ongoing and that nothing was official.

The Maryland Republican Party was highly critical of the governor's proposed furlough program on Thursday. Earlier in the day, multiple news outlets reported a proposal had begun circulating among labor union leaders. Adamec said the plan would save the state $34.4 million from the unpaid leaves directly and additional savings would be reaped from the money saved on certain services.

"If the governor had taken the suggestion of Republicans in the General Assembly and level funded the budget for a year, there would be no need for these antics," said GOP party chair Jim Pelura in a statement. "Instead of playing shell games, Governor O'Malley and the Democrat leadership in the General Assembly should sit down and really make some hard choices to cut out wasteful spending."

Adamec said the GOP was doing nothing more than playing politics.

"This is a game the GOP likes to play every time budget issues come up," Adamec told PolitickerMD.com.

Pelura also called on O'Malley to reduce the pay of some of his senior staff. "This follows revelations from earlier this year that O'Malley's senior staff got huge raises over their predecessors when they were hired," Pelura said. "Perhaps they should take reductions."

But Adamec called Pelura's statement a falsehood and said salaries have gone down in the O'Malley-Brown administration as opposed to the Ehrlich-Steele administration.