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Gov. Martin O'Malley said Monday that he will recommend as many as 400 layoffs and furloughs of state employees when he presents $470 million in budget cuts to the state Board of Public Works this week.

"It will be a tremendous strain on us at every level — state, county and local," O'Malley (D) said during a news conference Monday at Prince George's Community College in Largo, where he highlighted state efforts in public health.

O'Malley (D) will hold a news conference at 11 a.m. today in Annapolis, where he will detail the proposal he will take to the board, which consists of the governor, the comptroller and the treasurer.

The majority of the cuts to the $13 billion fiscal 2010 budget — about $250 million — will come from reductions in state aid to Maryland counties.

Such aid goes to local health departments, public safety, highway user funds, community colleges, libraries and to offset differences in counties' abilities to generate local income tax revenues.

"That's where it gets down to the real individuals," said Sen. Nancy J. King, a member of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee. "And it's going to hurt the counties. But I don't see anywhere else to cut."

The board, which has the authority to cut the state budget when the General Assembly is not in session, made $280 million in cuts July 22.

Wednesday's cuts will mark the next step toward $750 million in total reductions that seek to help bridge a budget deficit that continues to grow amid underperforming state revenues from property, sales and personal and corporate income taxes.

The full scope of the deficit — which state fiscal analysts recently said could be about $1.5 billion by next year — will not be known for three weeks when the Board of Revenue Estimates is expected to detail further revenue writedowns.

O'Malley said he is considering layoffs of 300 to 400 state employees, a departure from past cuts under his administration when mostly vacant jobs and few filled positions were slashed.

State employee furloughs would be similar to the mandatory unpaid leave days implemented under the fiscal 2009 budget. Employees were forced to take two furlough days late last year and another two to three over the remainder of the fiscal year depending on their pay level.

"It will all be very painful," O'Malley said in an interview. Virtually every kind of state aid that counties receive will be slashed, except for K-12 education, he said, reiterating a pledge that he and his deputies have made repeatedly.

But with $5.3 billion of the $6.5 billion in aid flowing from the state to the counties going to K-12 education, lawmakers expect schools to suffer the budget axe at the hands of county councils, if not at the hands of the state.

With roughly half of Montgomery County's budget going to K-12 education, public schools are sure to be affected in some way, said King (D-Dist. 39) of Montgomery Village.

"It's got to come out of education because they don't have anywhere else to cut," she said.

Other cuts could come to higher education. The University System of Maryland was forced to slash a combined $37.8 million from the budgets of its 11 universities after last month's cuts. A tuition freeze is in place for the fall semester — the fourth consecutive year that tuition has not increased. But Chancellor William E. Kirwan has said that tuition hikes could be on the horizon for the spring semester if the state makes more cuts.

O'Malley has been tight-lipped on specific cuts as cabinet secretaries have scrutinized their agencies' operations and programs for ways to balance the budget.

On Sunday, The Baltimore Sun quoted an O'Malley spokesman as saying that the governor rejected plans to slash $600,000 in state aid to the Baltimore City Department of Social Services and to cut $150,000 from the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore.

"The goal is not to cut social services across the board," O'Malley spokeswoman Christine Hansen said on Monday.