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ANNAPOLIS — Balancing the fiscal 2010 budget is turning into a heavyweight prize fight with no one sure how many rounds it will go.

When the bell rang to end Round Two on Wednesday, the Board of Public Works had cut $454 million, approving layoffs of 202 state workers, up to 10 furlough days for others, $211 million in cuts in aid to counties and major reductions in health care and higher education.

The cuts drew criticism from Republicans and a moderate Democrat who said Gov. Martin O'Malley did not act fast enough or go far enough in attempting to bridge the budget gap. Analysts predict the gap could total more than $1 billion when legislators return to Annapolis in January to begin work on the fiscal 2011 budget.

"I think they could be more aggressive in how they make their cuts, because I just hate to see us furlough employees, and I hate layoffs because that doesn't help the economy and that doesn't help families," said Del. Galen R. Clagett (D-Dist. 3A) of Frederick.

Of the 202 layoffs and elimination of 162 vacant positions, Clagett said: "If these jobs didn't need to be around, why weren't they eliminated in the first place a long time ago?"

Senate Minority Leader Allan H. Kittleman blasted O'Malley (D) for what he called "poor budget planning and waiting too long to make tough decisions" that has led to a deficit of the governor's own making.

"O'Malley has been in charge of our state budget for over three years now," said Kittleman (R-Dist. 9) of West Friendship. "So you can't be blaming everything on the prior administration."

Others defended the scope and timing of the cuts.

"I think [O'Malley] is trying to be slow and deliberate and trying to minimize the pain as much as possible," said Del. Steven J. DeBoy Sr. (D-Dist. 12A) of Arbutus.

Cuts have long-term ramifications, DeBoy said. The Landsdowne Library in his district was closed during budget cuts in 1992 and did not reopen until 2005, he said.

The multiple rounds of cuts draw comparisons to a boxing match — sometimes called "the sweet science."

Said DeBoy: "It's not an exact science. I'm not sure we're done, I think we might have to go another round or two. The worst is yet to come, really."

Del. Theodore J. Sophocleus (Dist. 32) of Linthicum likened the process of budget-cutting to a demolition derby.

"If you're driving in that, you try and avoid the major accident and still protect the integrity of the driver," said the self-described moderate-conservative Democrat.

Recent governors, including Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R), Parris N. Glendening (D) and William Donald Schaefer (D) made cuts closer to the end of the calendar year — the middle of the fiscal year, said Neil Bergsman, director of the Maryland Budget and Tax Policy Institute.

"I think [O'Malley] has acted more promptly and more transparently than his last three predecessors," Bergsman said.

But O'Malley's failure to cut more deeply in the fiscal 2010 budget he proposed in January — and in prior budgets — has meant that counties must now bear the brunt and that the state has yet to find a permanent fix, Republicans and some Democrats said.

O'Malley needs to be willing to sacrifice certain "sacred cows" such as K-12 education, which went untouched in the two rounds of cuts and to redefine the state's relationship with counties, Clagett said.

"Those are things we're going to have to look at temporarily to get through the box [we're in]," said Clagett, adding that the state needs to "look at our relationships with counties and make their expectations realistic."

Because less than one-quarter of the cuts approved on Wednesday are permanent — Budget Secretary T. Eloise Foster noted that about $100 million in cuts will carry over beyond the current fiscal year — Kittleman is frustrated that they did little to address the long-term imbalance between state revenues and expenditures.

"This is just a quick out for today and we're going to be in the same problem tomorrow," he said.

"We need to have structural changes," Kittleman said.

Making such changes necessitates having what Sen. E.J. Pipkin has called "the talk."

That means discussing priorities in major spending programs "so that we didn't micromanage like this," said Pipkin (R-Dist. 36) of Elkton. "Instead we've gone in a different direction."

Pipkin said he would like to see a discussion of how the state picks up $800 million to $1 billion in teacher's pension costs while counties set teacher's salaries. He'd also like to look for ways to deliver health care more efficiently.

"It's a significant part of the budget," he said. "All we're hearing about are things on the margin."

In all, the board, which comprises the governor, treasurer and comptroller and has the authority to slash the budget when the General Assembly is not in session, has cut $736 million. When passed by the legislature, the spending plan totaled $13.8 billion.

With the state's property, sales and personal and corporate income taxes failing to yield expected revenues and a Sept. 17 meeting of the Board of Revenue Estimates expected to bring more writedowns, more cuts could be on the way.

"There will be considerable work that remains to be done in the preparation of that budget," O'Malley said during a briefing on the cuts this week.

Legislators expect to have their work cut out for them when they return to Annapolis in January to begin work on the fiscal 2011 budget.

Del. A. Wade Kach said he would like to see O'Malley appoint a bipartisan work group to look at long-term budget solutions.

It is unlikely that Democrats and Republicans would have any such in-depth bipartisan discussion of the budget without prodding from the governor or the presiding officers, said Kach (R-Dist. 5B) of Cockeysville.

"It's obvious that over the last couple of years that hasn't happened," he said. "There hasn't been a coalition that's been put together and the votes have been very polarized."

Clagett rejected the idea of a bipartisan coalition that would involve a battle with the administration.

"That's not the thing to do in a crisis time," he said.