Determined to stop the O'Malley administration's proposed energy tax expansion, the Johns Hopkins University and the city's other major colleges and hospitals offered yesterday to make voluntary payments to the city totaling $20 million over four years.
The offer from 22 institutions includes $4 million for next year, $6 million in each of the following two years and $4 million in the fourth year, more than the institutions estimate they would pay with the 8 percent energy tax. Hopkins and its medical complex would provide half of the payments.
That might not be enough to persuade Mayor Martin O'Malley to drop the planned tax expansion, which is due for a final vote at Monday night's City Council meeting. His answer is expected by this morning.
"It's under consideration, and the mayor is pleased by the effort that the nonprofits put forth," mayoral spokesman Tony White said after three O'Malley aides met with nonprofit officials at City Hall yesterday afternoon to discuss the offer.
"We can't see any reason why the mayor would not accept this proposal," said Hopkins University Provost Steven Knapp, who attended the meeting. "The amount of money we're talking about is certainly well within the range, and probably beyond the range, of what he was saying he needed."
In an interview before the meeting, Knapp had words of caution for the administration as it weighs whether to go forward with the tax plan. If the talks fail, he said, it could affect the university's willingness to cooperate with the city -- including whether to expand and aid in redevelopment in some of East Baltimore's poorest neighborhoods.
"When we're making decisions about where we're going to invest our resources, obviously you want to do that in a place where you feel that your views are going to be respected, and where our services are going to be valued," Knapp said. "This isn't the only place we have campuses. We have a large amount of property in Montgomery County, for example."
O'Malley proposed last month to extend the city's 8 percent energy tax, imposed on businesses, to all nonprofit groups. The plan was to raise $4 million next year, avoid some layoffs and help balance the nearly $1.7 billion operating budget for next fiscal year, which begins July 1.
Yesterday's meeting occurred after a series of talks among Hopkins, other nonprofit groups and the administration, but the money discussed never equaled what the tax would raise.
