Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon delayed plans to buy a firetruck, reduced outside legal funds and took $100,000 from a witness protection program run by the Housing Department, three of nearly 100 snips Wednesday that the city's agencies recommended to reduce spending by $12.9 million and contribute to the overall $60.2 million budget reduction program.
"It was a difficult task," said Baltimore's budget director, Andrew Kleine. "I think we have come up with a plan that is not going to be overly detrimental to key services." But he added: "Most of the cuts will have real impacts."
Kleine stressed that the witness program still has a $500,000 budget and that in recent years has not spent more. The program was started after seven members of the Dawson family were killed in East Baltimore, and it is separate from a courts program to protect witnesses in criminal cases.
Other cuts include reductions to senior centers, training for elections workers, tuberculosis clinic funding and libraries. The library cuts include book purchases but would not affect hours of operation. The city also saved $350,000 by renegotiating a towing contract and other citywide maintenance will be put off. The reductions were picked from $40 million worth of cuts that Dixon asked agency heads to submit in July.
Kleine said the goal was to minimize layoffs, but he added that if the budget situation worsens, job losses will be hard to avoid. The cuts are needed because of projected declines in city tax revenues and state aid. Dixon stressed that more cuts will likely be necessary.
Separately, in a packed public meeting Wednesday, the city's Board of Estimates unanimously approved across-the-board furloughs for non-public-safety employees and accepted 27 city layoffs. City elected officials praised Finance Director Edward J. Gallagher for developing a plan that kept job losses to a minimum. The plan saves 400 city jobs, Dixon said.
The plan means that city government will be closed for five days and that some higher-paid workers, including the mayor, will have to take 10 days without pay.
Police and fire unions have resisted the furlough plan, and the Dixon administration gave them about a month to agree to an alternative that would save $8 million. Fire union heads estimate that furloughs or layoffs from their department could mean that up to 10 fire companies would be closed each shift, a level they call unacceptable.
