Topline: Maryland State Sen. James Rosapepe justified the new state budget’s sweeping tax and fee increases by claiming that “Maryland is under attack from Washington,” blaming a loss of federal contracts for the state’s $3.3 billion deficit.
Most lawmakers have not mentioned that the budget deficit is at least partially Maryland’s own creation. Records show that Maryland’s payroll increased by nearly $642 million last year, the largest one-year increase since OpenTheBooks began tracking the salaries in 2017.
Key facts: In 2023, the Maryland state payroll cost $4.4 billion. There were 67,362 employees, meaning the average worker earned $65,425.
The payroll was $5 billion in 2024 — an increase of almost 15%, even though inflation that year was only 3%. New hires and pay raises meant there were 68,947 workers earning $73,182 on average.
There were 72 state employees who outearned the President of the United States’ $400,000 salary, and an additional 1,039 people outearned Gov. Wes Moore’s $194,000 salary. The highest-paid employee was Min Yu, a Health Department doctor who made $573,000.
The numbers do not include employees of state colleges, which tacked on another $3.8 billion to the payroll last year.
Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com.
Background: Earlier this year, fiscal analysts recommended the state cut $239 million of planned pay raises for 2026, but the legislature ignored them. Instead, Moore signed a spending package this May that balances the budget with over $2 billion in cuts to state programs and $1.6 billion of increases to taxes and fees.
In the past decade, Maryland state agencies have increased their payroll 30% faster than inflation, according to the Baltimore Sun.
Summary: There is a clear cognitive dissonance when a state is raising taxes while some employees are still earning salaries of nearly $600,000.
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