BALTIMORE — Maryland Gov. Wes Moore is moving forward with a voluntary buyout program and hiring freeze, flip-flopping on an issue that he and some other top Democrats rejected months earlier during a tumultuous state budget process.

The hiring freeze, announced Tuesday and set to begin July 1 with the start of fiscal year 2026, closely mirrors a proposal by state Sen. J.B. Jennings, a Baltimore County Republican, that failed to pass during the legislative session.

“Ironically it’s opening day, I threw a fastball right down the middle and said to him, ‘Governor, what about a hiring freeze? Have you thought about it? What about implementing it?’” Jennings said in late March on the Senate floor, recounting a conversation with Moore in a Senate Budget and Taxation Committee meeting. “He said no, he doesn’t want to.”

Jennings offered the amendment as a way to help close the state’s $3 billion structural deficit. He proposed that a statewide hiring freeze take effect for all state agencies on July 1. And, similar to Moore’s Tuesday announcement, Jennings’ proposed freeze would not have applied to positions in law enforcement and health care.

Jennings’ proposal also went further than Moore’s, aiming to eliminate cost-of-living adjustments and incremental raises for state employees in fiscal year 2026, and scrapped several new positions in the governor’s office.

‘We’ll see how bad things get’

As he presented the amendment, Jennings said Moore rejected his idea because he wanted cabinet secretaries to maintain the ability to hire. The governor’s office did not respond to The Sun’s request for comment.

Jennings’ amendment ultimately failed on a vote of 17 to 26. The only Democrats to vote in its favor were Senate Finance Committee Chair Pam Beidle and Sen. Shaneka Henson of Anne Arundel County, Sen. Carl Jackson of Baltimore County, and Sen. Mary-Dulany James of Harford County.

Senate Budget and Taxation Committee Chair Guy Guzzone, a Howard County Democrat, wanted the chamber to reject the Baltimore County Republican’s amendment, but he also teased that “eventually” Jennings’ desire for a hiring freeze “may come about.”

At the time, Guzzone argued that the legislature had already taken “some incredibly significant actions already” to reduce hiring by raising Moore’s proposed 7.5% vacancy rate among state employees in the budget to 9.5%.

“We have, effectively — not exactly, but effectively — really limited hiring almost down to nothing,” he said on the Senate floor.

Guzzone also acknowledged a freeze could resurface: “We’ll see how bad things get.”

‘This was anticipated’

The newly announced hiring freeze comes as Maryland braces for potentially massive cuts to social safety net programs under President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” The state is at risk of losing hundreds of millions of dollars under the legislation, which is currently being amended and considered in the U.S. Senate. Moore’s move also comes after he recently allocated $400 million for a community investment program opposed by several Republicans.

It is unclear why Moore chose to implement the freeze after allegedly rejecting it during the budget process.

State Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Baltimore Democrat, said Wednesday that, as the budget was finalized, the legislature and Moore’s administration knew there would be “additional, across-the-board cuts to balance the budget in a structural, ongoing way,” and that lawmakers wanted to make sure that the governor had the tools to implement them at his discretion.

He called the freeze and voluntary separation program “the appropriate step.”

“A lot of this was anticipated,” Ferguson said.

Analysts say Moore made political, economic decisions

Todd Eberly, who is a state employee as a political scientist at St. Mary’s College, sees Moore’s decision as a political one.

“There’s a couple reasons why he wouldn’t want to do this during session on the political side,” Eberly said. “Wes Moore ran on how gutted state agencies left the state ill-equipped. To announce [buyouts and a hiring freeze] during the session would’ve undermined that message.”

He noted it could also be a political move heading into the 2026 governor’s election, when he could possibly face former Gov. Larry Hogan.

“What did Hogan run on? Sound management of state finances, and it worked for him. He didn’t want to give him that opening during session,” Eberly said.

It could have also been an economic decision, he said. “There might’ve been a hope that the state’s financial situation improved, but that isn’t happening. The money isn’t going to appear. This likely needed to happen.”

Darius Irani, an economist and vice president of strategic partnerships and applied research at Towson University, said “every crisis present opportunities to reallocate resources.”

The time from Jennings’ amendment to July 1 gave the Moore administration time to make better decisions about hiring and freezes, Irani said. “It’s a chance to ask, ‘Who do I really need?'”

John Dedie, a political science professor at the Community College of Baltimore County, said Moore picked this option because other possible cuts were too painful.

“There seem to be certain untouchables like the Blueprint and layoffs. You can’t do layoffs in an election year,” Dedie said.

But he said the hiring freeze and voluntary buyouts “should have been done sooner.”

“Maybe they thought they’d have the budget from [Congress] by now and they realized the clock is ticking,” Dedie said.

Moore’s recent announcement was “the easy thing to do now,” he said. “A voluntary buyout is a lot less painful than layoffs.”

But buyouts do have a downside, Dedie warned.

“The bad people always stay,” he said. “The good people have options and leave.”

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