WILLIAM DONALD SCHAEFER, Governor

That is what the General Assembly has done, in § 2-608(a), with the county or
"piggyback" income tax and with the portion of the income tax identified in § 2-607. In
these provisions, the General Assembly has instructed the Comptroller to remit a
portion of the tax revenues generated in each local jurisdiction to that jurisdiction -
where, of course, the funds are subject to local budget procedures. The categories of
funds described in these provisions are neither estimated as State fund in the Budget
Bill nor appropriated for other purposes in the Budget Bill or by a supplementary
appropriations bill. In effect, by statute these portions of income tax revenues never
lose their local status, just as in Baltimore v. O'Conor the fines originating in one
county were authorized to be kept at their source.

House Bill 134 is significantly different, however. It does not identify an overall
category of revenues derived from particular jurisdictions that are marked off, year
after year, for the use of those jurisdictions. Instead, it allocates specific dollar amounts
of Statewide income tax revenues that have already been estimated and appropriated in
the Budget Bill, attaches conditions for their disbursement, and limits the disbursement
to a single fiscal year. Indeed, because House Bill 134 seeks to require the disbursement
of revenues already appropriated, we think that the Court of Appeals would be that
much less likely to approve it under the dicta in O'Conor or otherwise.⁵ Unlike §§ 2-607
and 2-608(a), House Bill 134 in our view cannot be construed as a permissible
demarcation of a category of local funds, to be returned to the source jurisdiction
outside the ordinary process of appropriations.

Hence, although the matter is not entirely free from doubt, we think that House
Bill 134 can be given its intended effect only though a lawful appropriation.

C. Appropriation Methods

Article III, § 52 of the Constitution prescribes the permissible methods of
appropriation. In a regular session, those methods are limited to appropriations by the
Budget Bill or a supplementary appropriation bill.⁶

The Department of Budget and Fiscal Planning has advised that Senate Bill 310,
the Budget Bill for fiscal year 1991, does not contain an appropriation pursuant to

⁵ To be sure, although House Bill 134 relies on the same source of revenues as were
estimated in the budget and the Budget Bill, House Bill 134 does not result in a violation of the
balanced budget requirement. Article III, § 52(5a) merely requires that the "Budget and the
Budget Bill as submitted by the Governor" and as enacted are to be balanced. The budget and
Budget Bill for fiscal year 1991 satisfied this requirement.

⁶ Although an appropriation act during a regular session must be either a Budget Bill or
supplementary appropriations bill, in a special session the Budget Amendment allows the
General Assembly to enact emergency appropriations. Article III, § 52(14). Thus, in Panitz v.
Comptroller, 247 Md. 501, 503 (1967), the Court of Appeals stated that funds which had not
been validly appropriated by a supplementary appropriations bill in a regular session could be
appropriated by an appropriation act in a special session. See also 52 Opinions of the Attorney
General 176, 180 (1967). This was, in fact, done by Chapter 1 of the Laws of Maryland, Special
Session, June 22, 1967.

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