Maryland Hiring Freeze: Buyouts, 502 Cuts, and Exemptions

Maryland imposed a statewide hiring freeze on most executive branch jobs beginning July 1, 2025, and it was expected to stay in place through at least June 2026. The freeze was part of a package meant to cut $121 million from the state’s personnel budget for fiscal year 2026, and it carved out exceptions for public safety roles, 24-hour facilities, and direct care positions.¹

Why Maryland Froze Hiring

The state entered fiscal 2026 facing what the Department of Budget and Management called the worst fiscal crisis in at least 20 years, with a projected $2.95 billion General Fund shortfall.² State spending had grown 55% between fiscal years 2019 and 2023, partly on commitments built atop one-time federal pandemic aid, while Maryland’s population, job, and GDP growth had trailed the national average since 2017.

Federal workforce reductions hit Maryland harder than any other state. Between January 2025 and January 2026, more than 31,000 federal jobs disappeared from the state.³ A seven-week federal shutdown, new tariffs, and an expanded SALT deduction that cost the state an estimated $118 million added further pressure.⁴ In spring 2025, Moody’s downgraded Maryland’s bond rating from AAA to Aa1, ending a 30-year streak at the top tier.⁵ The 2025 General Assembly closed a $3.3 billion structural deficit using fund transfers, tax increases, and spending cuts, and that package included the $121 million personnel-savings mandate that produced the freeze.

What the Freeze Covers

The freeze was written into Section 42 of an amendment to House Bill 350, the state budget bill. It applies to all employees in the State Personnel Management System effective July 1, 2025.⁶ The same amendment barred the state from spending money earmarked for the 1% fiscal 2026 cost-of-living adjustment and employee step increases, and it required roughly $365 million in salary and benefit reductions across general, special, and federal funds. It also abolished 25 new positions in the Office of the Public Defender.

The freeze is not an absolute stop. Chief of Staff Fagan Harris described it as “raising the bar of what qualifies as a priority hire,” noting the state would still fill hundreds of roles in a workforce of more than 40,000.⁷ Technical professionals in fields like finance and IT remained eligible, and the state continued recruiting laid-off federal workers for high-priority functions. The HB 350 amendment also directed the Secretary of Budget and Management to set guidelines for limited exceptions where filling a job would actually reduce costs.

Who Is Exempt

The legislative text exempts direct custody and direct care positions responsible for people in state custody or care. The administration applied this broadly, treating the following categories as outside the freeze:⁸

Law enforcement, including sworn state troopers.
24/7 facilities such as prisons, state hospitals, and juvenile facilities.
Direct service roles including family investment specialists and parole and probation agents.

The University System of Maryland, the judiciary, and the legislative branch are also outside the freeze’s scope.¹ Each USM campus runs its own hiring and budget decisions and in some cases imposed its own, separate restrictions.

The Voluntary Buyout That Ran Alongside

On July 10, 2025, the Moore administration opened a Voluntary Separation Program for state workers willing to leave. It was modeled on earlier buyouts in 2011 and 2015.⁹ Eligible employees had to be permanent, full-time executive branch workers with at least two years of continuous service. Police, correctional workers, court employees, and roughly 60 other state offices were excluded, along with about 1,700 ineligible job classifications.¹⁰

Participants received a $20,000 lump sum, an additional $300 for each year of state service, six months of state-paid health and life insurance, and payouts for unused leave and compensatory time.¹¹ They had to agree not to return to state employment for at least 18 months.¹² By the August 4 deadline, 980 employees had applied: 862 from the State Personnel Management System and 118 from the Maryland Department of Transportation.¹³ Each application needed approval from the employee’s agency and the Secretary of Budget and Management; about 877 were deemed valid, and 332 were ultimately approved. Those employees left state service by the end of September 2025, and their positions were abolished.¹⁴

502 Positions Eliminated

On October 22, 2025, the Maryland Board of Public Works voted to eliminate 502 state positions: the 332 vacated through the buyout and another 170 vacant positions deemed unnecessary.¹⁵ None of the eliminated positions were filled at the time of the vote. The cuts were projected to save $27.4 million in fiscal year 2026 and $47.2 million annually from fiscal year 2027 onward.¹⁰

The reductions touched nearly every state agency, though no agency-by-agency breakdown was publicly released. With the executive branch employing roughly 55,600 workers at the time, the 502 positions represented less than 1% of the workforce.¹⁶

Pay Restrictions for Non-Union Staff

Beyond the freeze on hiring, non-union employees, including staff in the governor’s own office, were denied planned merit and step increases for fiscal year 2026. They did receive a 1% cost-of-living adjustment in July.¹⁷ Agencies were also directed to explore in-sourcing contracted services and consolidating physical facilities to find more savings.

No Layoffs for Current Employees

AFSCME Council 3, which represents more than 26,000 state workers, secured assurances from the administration that no current employees would be laid off as part of the $121 million reduction.¹ Chief of Staff Harris confirmed the administration had avoided layoffs and furloughs for current employees, saying the goal was to manage cuts “without impacting the public.”¹⁷

Union president Patrick Moran acknowledged the “tough and volatile times” but warned that solutions “cannot come at the cost of providing quality state services,” citing existing “chronic understaffing, dangerous working conditions, and unsustainable workloads.” By December 2025, AFSCME Council 3 had filed three unfair labor practice complaints with the Maryland Public Employee Labor Relations Board, a step the union called “very rare.”¹⁸ Those complaints centered on contract disputes over shift differential pay, telework data, and workplace video surveillance rather than the freeze itself, but union leaders tied the filings to staffing shortages that the buyout and freeze had worsened.

The freeze arrived against the backdrop of a vacancy problem the governor had promised to fix. Moore had pledged on taking office in January 2023 to fill roughly 5,000 vacant state positions, and as of May 2025 state agencies still reported about 4,800 vacancies, a 9.3% vacancy rate.¹⁷ During the 2025 session, Moore had resisted Republican calls for a freeze, pointing to real consequences of understaffing: public safety risks in law enforcement and corrections, and wait times at the Department of Labor that stretched up to 16 months for unemployment insurance benefits.⁸

What Happens After June 2026

The freeze was not a one-time fix. By November 2025, the projected budget gap for fiscal year 2027 had reached $1.4 billion, roughly five times the figure projected seven months earlier, and was expected to grow to nearly $4 billion over the following five years.⁴ Long-term mandatory spending on the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, weak sales tax collections, and continued federal funding uncertainty all contributed.

In December 2025, the Joint Spending Affordability Committee recommended $600 million in ongoing spending reductions and urged the governor to fill only “mission critical” vacancies, though it did not formally call for extending the freeze.¹⁹ Moore’s fiscal year 2027 budget proposal, released in January 2026, moved in the opposite direction on hiring: it created 419 new positions and converted 48 contractual roles into permanent state jobs, offset in part by eliminating 207 existing positions.²⁰ The administration cited the loss of 25,000 federal jobs in Maryland and broader economic headwinds as reason to maintain state capacity in critical areas.

1
WBAL-TV. Maryland Hiring Freeze Personnel Cost Reductions
2
Maryland Department of Budget and Management. FY2026 Maryland State Budget Highlights
3
Maryland Matters. Former Federal Workers’ Stories of Survival
4
Maryland Matters. Budget Concerns Resurface as State Faces Projected $1.4 Billion Gap
5
Maryland Matters. State Dumps Moody’s a Year After It Downgraded Maryland Bonds
6
Maryland General Assembly. HB 350 Amendment
7
WTOP. Wes Moore’s Chief of Staff Shares Details on Maryland’s Hiring Freeze
8
The Daily Record. Maryland Hiring Freeze Budget Cuts
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WMAR. Hiring Freeze, Buyouts as State Needs to Reduce $121 Million
10
Maryland Matters. State Approves Early Buyouts for 332 Employees
11
Maryland Matters. State Employees Offered $20,000 as Part of Buyout
12
Conduit Street. State Rolls Out Voluntary Separation Program
13
Maryland Matters. Close to 1,000 State Employees Apply for Early Buyout
14
The Daily Record. Maryland Board Approves State Employee Buyouts
15
WYPR. Maryland Board of Public Works Approves Eliminating 500 State Jobs
16
Maryland Department of Legislative Services. FY 2025 Annual Statewide Equal Employment Opportunity Report
17
Maryland Matters. Buyout, Hiring Freeze: Moore Administration Budget
18
Maryland Matters. Maryland Union Files Unfair Labor Practices Against the State
19
Maryland Matters. Fiscal Committee Eyes $600 Million in Ongoing Cuts
20
Bethesda Magazine. Moore Proposed Budget Cuts, Shifts Spending Gap