Before Maryland lawmakers opened the 2026 legislative session in January, the state’s land conservation programs were already facing a $75 million shortfall over the next three years.
It’s a familiar story, conservation advocates say. In 1969, Maryland became the first state to set aside a consistent, dedicated funding source for land conservation. That money has enabled the state to save hundreds of thousands of acres from encroaching development.
Credit: Dave Harp / Bay Journal
But since 2002, legislators looking to patch budget holes have diverted more than $750 million of the funds meant to go to land preservation efforts, according to an analysis by Ann Jones, one of the state’s most vocal conservation activists. That has deprived Marylanders of an estimated 150,000 acres of public land purchases and conservation easements — an area more than three times of the size of the District of Columbia.
“It’s a little, teensy slice of the budget, but it makes a huge difference to a lot of people,” said Jones, who bases the lost-acreage calculation on a recent estimate from the Department of Natural Resources that said conserving land typically costs around $5,000 per acre.
“If that money’s not there and you don’t have a timeline for when you can get it to [the property owner],” said Jones, a former director of Partners for Open Space, a statewide coalition of more than 100 land preservation groups, “that land is going to get developed.”
Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, has proposed setting aside about $86 million this coming year for the state’s three premier land conservation programs: Program Open Space, Rural Legacy and the Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation. That’s more than double last year’s allocation, but it is still well below the $200 million those programs received during each of 2023 and 2024.
With the state facing a projected $1.5 billion budget shortfall this year, though, Jones and other advocates just hope that legislators stick with Moore’s proposal and don’t enact further cutbacks.
“There will be future revenue projections coming in, and there are so many things happening outside our influence here,” Jones said. “If those revenue projections are worse than expected, there could be some [state budget] cuts.”
Meantime, help may come from the Republican side of the aisle. Lawmakers balanced last year’s budget, in part, by withdrawing $25 million from the land programs along with $25 million for each of the next three years. A GOP-led bill wouldn’t undo last year’s cut but would reverse the $75 million in future cuts.
“I have a lot of constituents that take advantage of these programs,” said Del. Mike Griffith, the bill’s lead sponsor in the House and a Republican who represents the mostly rural Cecil and Harford counties. “This is a mandated fund, and that money should be put back.”
As the Bay Journal went to press, backers the House and Senate versions of the legislation were awaiting word on whether the bills would pass out of their respective committees. The session is scheduled to end on April 13.
The dedicated revenue for land conservation funding is generated by a “transfer tax” of 0.5% on every real estate transaction in the state. That money is supposed to protect farms from new developments, keep urban sprawl in check and expand public access to the outdoors. But during lean times, it has often served as a slush fund to finance other priorities – under both Democratic and Republican governors.
In 2016, lawmakers passed legislation requiring that cuts going forward be paid back into the fund within three years. Since then, they have still found ways to divert more than $150 million from various land preservation accounts, according to Jones’ estimates. That includes the entire $7 million budget this year for a program that seeks to expand greenspace in underserved communities.
“It’s definitely discouraging,” said Meg Boyd, executive director of the Howard County Conservancy.
Boyd added that her organization is working on what would be its largest conservation acquisition in 25 years, so this would be a bad time for funding to dry up. “I would say in the next 5 to 10 years, there will be very, very few opportunities to conserve parcels like the one we’re working with now,” she said.
The cuts come as many of Maryland’s state parks have been forced to limit visitation during peak days to avoid overcrowding. Additional funding is needed not only for new parks to absorb that demand but also to add more parking and amenities to existing facilities, Boyd said.
The Eastern Shore Land Conservancy has needed to put some land acquisitions on “indefinite pause” over the years because of the lack of state funding when it was needed, said Steve Kline, the group’s president and CEO.
“What we see happening is the legislature and decision-makers in Maryland have frequently been unable to keep their hands off the open space transfer tax pot,” he said. “When you have an opportunity to protect large, intact parcels, the opportunity is not coming again, and those opportunities go away when that farm gets subdivided.”
Nearly half of the $100 million diverted from Maryland’s land programs by the 2025 legislation is expected to be siphoned from the Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation. The program pays farmers to legally restrict development on their land.
Based on the 2025 costs, the $49 million reallocated from the program would have preserved about 13,000 acres of farmland, according to an estimate provided by officials with the Maryland Department of Agriculture. Even before the cuts, many counties had waitlists for applicants, the officials said.
Maryland’s Rural Legacy Program is supposed to receive a little under 10% of the proceeds from the transfer tax annually. That program has conserved more than 135,000 acres of farmland through more than 1,000 easements, according to state figures.
One of the latest Rural Legacy agreements led to the conservation of about 240 acres of agricultural fields and woods in Caroline County on the Eastern Shore, including 3,500 feet of buffering along the Choptank River. For John Saathoff, the landowner, the $880,000 transaction assured his family the use of the farmland for years to come as well as greater financial stability.
He hopes that other farmers have the same opportunity in the future.
“To see [lawmakers], because of financial constraints, say that’s not a priority anymore is concerning,” said Saathoff as he waited to unload a truckload of corn at a local feed mill. “You just wonder what the future of the state is. There continues to be farmland being converted to other uses.