District 14 Virtual Town Hall 5.5.2021 Baltimore’s Budget

During our District 14 Virtual Town Hall last week, we learned about Baltimore’s budget process. It was a little different this year because of COVID. Bob Cenname from BBMR and Councilman Eric Costello who is the Chair of the City Council’s Ways and Means Committee joined me to explain how the budget is crafted, what the considerations are, and the twist of the federal money. Here is the full video.

Chairman Costello outlined this year’s schedule:

• May 27th - City Council Tax Payer’s night at 5pm virtually - Here is the link to participate.

• June 1st -7th - City Council Agency Budget hearings from 9am-9pm - Link will be provided soon.

• The budget has to be passed before June 30th, 2021 for the fiscal year 2022 budget (starts July 1, 2021 ends June 30, 2022).

Bob Cenname outlined the timeline for budget development:

• Summer time his office starts predicting the revenue that will come in, any legislation from the General Assembly or federal level that will need to be taken into consideration, etc.

• Fall is when the agencies are asked to send in their requests for the next fiscal year, both capital and operating.

• Winter/spring the budget gets developed.

• Budget gets introduced in the Board of Estimates in April, and City Council in May.

Cenname also laid out the considerations for the budget:

40% of the budget is fixed or mandated costs. These include the school funding, the pensions (including police), and others. This will increase over time because of the obligations with Kirwan funding for the schools. This funding for the schools does not kick in until 2023 fiscal year.

The budget team determines what it costs to maintain the same level of services each year - all costs are increased generally.

The city is getting $670million from the federal American Rescue Plan. This will be a line in the budget, but not allocated because the Mayor wants to go through a thoughtful process to determine how this will be spent. The CAREs Act funding that is left over is integrated into the budget and includes rental assistance, hotels for those experiencing homelessness, and programs like that.

While the Mayor wants to cut BPD spending, the consent decree judge was clear that programs that would get the funding (like safe streets, etc) will need to prove that they work before the funds can be reallocated.