Anirban Basu, chairman and CEO of Sage Policy Group Inc., told a group of state senators Thursday they should pump more money into the Department of Business and Economic Development’s efforts to retain Maryland companies, and woo those located in other states.

Adding more money to the DBED budget will be a tall order. The department has suffered budget cuts in recent years and Gov. Martin O’Malley, in his proposal to be released Friday, will have to bridge a $1.6 billion deficit.

The governor has floated cuts to education and health care, but said the state will maintain its funding of county teacher pensions in the coming fiscal year. At a recent event, DBED Secretary Christian Johansson said the budget process will be “brutal.”

But that, Basu said, is precisely the reason to invest more now in attracting businesses and jobs to the state.

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After what has seemed like months of frigid cold, ice and snow, Annapolis got a dose of sunshine and temps in the mid-40s (downright balmy if you’re not standing in the shade) during the outdoor inaugural ceremony for Gov. Martin O’Malley.

That lead to one of the quotes of the day, from U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, who introduced the governor.

“It is only the O’Malley luck of the Irish that could bring out the sun on a day like today,” she said. “Remember the forecast? Stormy weather. O’Malley changed that. Remember the economic forecast? O’Malley’s going to change that, too.

But the best line of the day came from MPT reporter Lou Davis, who was providing live commentary of the swearing-in ceremony in the Senate chamber. After taking the oath of office, O’Malley was shown shaking the pen he had tried to use to sign his name to the official book.

“He’s using one of those ceremonial pens,” Davis said, “provided by a low bidder.”

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A new poll commissioned by advocates of an increase to the state’s tax on alcohol found that 66 percent of Marylanders support the hike as a way to fund health programs.

Fewer people — 55 percent — said they support the increase if the funds were used to reduce the state’s $1.6 billion budget deficit. That finding signals an awareness among those pushing the initiative that the cash-strapped General Assembly could see the alcohol tax as a way to ease the state’s budget woes.

“Maryland voters overwhelmingly support the dime-a-drink alcohol tax increase because they know that it will save lives and help Maryland’s economy,” said Vincent DeMarco, president of the Maryland Health Care For All! Coalition.

Beer and wine excise taxes were set in 1972 — beer at 9 cents per gallon and wine at 40 cents. The liquor tax was last changed in 1955, when it was raised to $1.50 per gallon. The proposal pushed by the coalition would raise all three taxes by the equivalent of a dime a drink. Backers estimate it would raise $215.6 million in new revenue.

The coalition is pushing for those funds to be dedicated to programs for the disabled, addiction treatment, mental health and health care coverage for childless adults. But even without that funding, its supporters believe the alcohol tax bump will have public health benefits by reducing drinking.

The alcohol tax increase has gotten more traction than most other tax hikes recently, and promises to do so again in 2011. It will run into intense opposition, however, from alcohol distributors, wholesalers and retailers, a traditional Annapolis powerhouse.

Top elected officials have also said 2011 isn’t the year to raise taxes, though they haven’t ruled them out completely. Gov. Martin O’Malley has repeatedly said his budget will not include tax increases, but hasn’t said he would fight against any such measures approved by the legislature.

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The deputy commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration will head Maryland’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, according to The Wall Street Journal, which cited unnamed government sources.

Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, who was appointed to his post by President Barack Obama, was previously Baltimore’s health commissioner. He held that job from Dec. 2005 to March 2009.

Gov. Martin O’Malley’s office on Tuesday said the governor would make an announcement regarding the department at Wednesday’s Board of Public Works meeting.

At the FDA, Sharfstein led efforts to ban alcoholic energy drinks like Four Loko and an investigation into a device used in knee surgery.

DHMH is now led by Secretary John M. Colmers.

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The leadership of the House committees that oversee taxes and legal issues will have a new look in the 2011 legislative session, according to committee rosters Speaker Michael E. Busch, D-Anne Arundel, released Wednesday.

Del. Samuel I. “Sandy” Rosenberg, who had been vice-chairman of the Judiciary Committee since 2004, will take the equivalent post on the Ways and Means Committee. The tax-setting committee will still be chaired by Del. Sheila E. Hixson, the Montgomery County Democrat who has held the post since 1993.

Taking Rosenberg’s position on Judiciary will be Del. Kathleen M. Dumais, D-Montgomery. The move will bring some gender balance to Judiciary after the women’s caucus criticized Chairman Joseph F. Vallario Jr. for his “tyrannical leadership.”

Dumais, who has served on Judiciary since she joined the House in 1993, was critical of the treatment of witnesses before the committee.

Del. Kathleen M. Dumais, a Montgomery County Democrat who has served on Judiciary since 2003, said some delegates “have been disrespectful” to citizens and “can get into a cross-examination mode that I don’t think is appropriate.”

But she defended the chairman as a man committed to his job and to giving everyone – committee members and citizens alike – a chance to speak out.

The committee will also have eight new members, all of them new to the General Assembly. They are:

• Tiffany Alston, D-Prince George’s
• Sam Arora, D-Montgomery
• Luke Clippinger, D-Baltimore City
• John Cluster, R-Baltimore County
• Michael McDermott, R-Wicomico and Worcester
• Keiffer Mitchell, D-Baltimore City
• Neil Parrott, R-Washington
• Geraldine Valentino-Smith, D-Prince George’s

Economic Matters, which oversees business regulation legislation, will have seven new members, all but one of them veteran lawmakers.

• Del. Benjamin Barnes, D-Prince George’s and Anne Arundel
• Del.-elect Steve Hershey, R-Middle Shore
• Del. Tom Hucker, D-Montgomery
• Del. Benjamin F. Kramer, D-Montgomery
• Del. Steven R. Schuh, R-Anne Arundel
• Del. Kelly Schulz, R-Frederick
• Del. Jay Walker, D-Prince George’s

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After chatting with Maryland Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. last week about the upcoming legislative session, the $1.6 billion budget deficit and the debates on taxes, gay marriage and the death penalty, the conversation shifted to a topic that that has gotten considerably more attention recently.

Who will replace Ralph Friedgen as the University of Maryland’s football coach?

For Miller, a Maryland grad and a staunch supporter of the school, the answer is simple.

“I personally support Mike Leach,” said Miller. Leach, the former head coach at Texas Tech, has been spending his time in Key West since leaving that program. There, according to Fox Sports, the pirate-obsessed Leach hangs out with a guy named “Weed” and has run-ins with sharks.

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A state commission is poised to vote next week on changes to the state’s retirement and health care benefits to recommend to the legislature after getting a four-month crash course in the underfunded benefits system.

“These are decisions that impact people for decades, for the last decades of their lives,” said Treasurer Nancy K. Kopp. “We want to do this right.”

The Public Employees’ and Retirees’ Benefit Sustainability Commission got a rundown of the options available to them Monday morning. Among the changes likely left on the cutting-room floor are freezing cost-of-living adjustments for retirees’ pensions and a switch to defined contribution plans like 401(k)’s.

Freezes, legislative analysts explained, would be illegal, and defined contribution plans, too costly.

“You can make it cost neutral, but only by paying a truly substandard benefit,” said Warren G. Deschenaux, the legislature’s top fiscal analyst.

“The numbers don’t work out,” Kopp said after the meeting. A former legislator, Kopp is also vice chair of the board that oversees the pension and retiree health care system.

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There will be horse racing in Maryland next year. The questions are how much, what kind and where?

As the future of Pimlico Race Course and Laurel Park, the state’s two thoroughbred tracks, is anything but certain, a little certainty is returning the Ocean Downs.

The Maryland Racing Commission granted the harness track outside of Ocean City a 40-day live racing meet for next summer that will follow a schedule similar to 2009.

Ocean Downs canceled its meet this year and held only four weekends of stakes races to accommodate the construction of a track-side casino. With Rosecroft Raceway in Prince George’s County closed and its parent company in bankruptcy, Ocean Downs is the only working harness track in the state.

The casino — it would be the state’s second — is scheduled to open in the first days of 2011, with a test run scheduled for the end of December.

The grand opening is about seven months later than the track’s management had planned. Asbestos and corroded structural steel in the building being renovated to hold the 750 slot machines delayed the Memorial Day weekend kickoff.

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Former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. spent $2.15 million in the final two weeks of the campaign, according to a spending report filed Tuesday with the state.

Gov. Martin O’Malley’s final report hasn’t been posted yet. It had to be filed by midnight Tuesday and the state offices are closed today, so we’ll have to wait until Monday to get a peek. (I know, I know. How will we get through the Thanksgiving holiday without it?)

Most of Ehrlich’s dough, $1.6 million, was spent on ads, with another $245,000 on direct mail to would-be voters. Ehrlich also reportedly spent $14,000 with a political operative who said he sent the Election Day “relax” robocalls under investigation by Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler. (Kudos to The Washington Post for unearthing that first.)

Ehrlich also dished out about $63,000 in fundraising expenses during the reporting period, which covered Oct. 18 to Nov. 16. During that time, Ehrlich raised $710,000, including $20,000 he appears to have lent his own campaign. The loan came from a Robert Ehrlich in Timonium, according to the campaign finance database run by the University of Maryland’s Center for American Politics and Citizenship.

Based on his last four campaign finance reports, Ehrlich raised about $7.4 million for his rematch with O’Malley, and spent $7.2 million.

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Gov. Martin O’Malley managed to get the bickering corporate parents of the state’s thoroughbred racing industry in the same room this week, but Penn National and MI Developments have not yet agreed on a plan for the Maryland Jockey Club in 2011.

Liam Farrell, at The Capital, reported the meeting first.

Shaun Adamec, O’Malley’s spokesman, said the governor met Wednesday in the State House with Penn National Vice President Steve Snyder and MID officers Frank Stronach, the chairman and CEO, and Vice Chairman Dennis Mills.

“There weren’t a lot of concrete details discussed in terms of ways forward. It was the first time they sat down since the vote in Anne Arundel County,” Adamec told me. “I can tell you what the tone wasn’t. It wasn’t about circumventing what happened at the ballot box.”

“It was very forward-looking,” he said, meaning how do you keep a horse track afloat sinking the casino development at the mall?

Penn National and MID have two very different notions.

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