Mayor Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake said a budget shortfall… (Baltimore Sun photo by Algerina…)
February 23, 2010|By Julie Scharper | julie.scharper@baltsun.com
Mayor Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake delivered a somber State of the City address Monday, warning of deep cuts to city services in the coming months as a result of a "devastating" budget shortfall.
Comparing the fiscal crisis to the fire that destroyed much of downtown Baltimore in 1904 and the riots that tore across the city in the wake of the 1968 assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Rawlings-Blake, who was sworn in as mayor earlier this month, said the city faced a "true test" that will be a "matter of survival but also renewal."
"Mark these words, remember them and factor them into our actions and decisions in the coming days," said Rawlings-Blake. "This $120 million deficit is brutal and will hit all of our citizens hard."
The mayor pledged to trim 10 percent from her office's $6 million budget, eliminate bureaucracy and consolidate services, but offered few specific reductions. She promoted the city's progress in education and crime prevention and vowed to fully fund schools. The city can keep the same number of officers on the street and scale back the rolling closures of fire companies, "if we work together," she said.
Rawlings-Blake made several veiled references to her predecessor, Sheila Dixon, who resigned earlier this month as part of a plea deal to resolve criminal charges of embezzlement and perjury. Rawlings-Blake pledged to improve transparency and ethical standards to "restore trust" in city government.
"Those of us who manage the public's dollars must recognize this simple truth - these dollars are not our personal playthings, they come from and belong to the people," the mayor said. "Across our city and indeed across our country, people demand and deserve honesty and responsibility from their elected officials."
Despite promising to slash her own $6 million office budget by 10 percent, it is unclear how Rawlings-Blake will scale back the city's $2.2 billion budget.
She is to present a spending proposal for the coming fiscal year next month, after a 150-member transition committee offers its analysis of city government.
In her own office, the International and Immigrant Affairs tasks have been absorbed into the neighborhoods office and one of three staff positions has been eliminated. And the Office of Cable and Communications will lose about $700,000 of general funds and will "no longer focus on programming that is self-promotional," spokesman Ryan O'Doherty said.
Dixon used the station to promote her administration's accomplishments and aired a farewell message in the days before her resignation.
Three of the eight vehicles in the mayor's office fleet will be reassigned to other agencies, O'Doherty said, adding the mayor will have one vehicle at her disposal. Dixon had three.
Del. Curt Anderson, a Baltimore Democrat who heads the city's House delegation in Annapolis, said that Rawlings-Blake is setting a "good precedent" by reducing her office before other areas.
"The bottom line is going to be the most important thing for Stephanie," said Anderson, who attended the address.
Frederick W. Puddester, who served as finance director for Gov. William Donald Schaefer during the recession in the early 1990s, said there are no easy choices, and that the city must make "extraordinary efforts" to deal with the crisis.
"You meet with every single department head, you look for programs you should totally eliminate, efficiencies, … vacant positions," said Puddester, an associate dean for finance at the Johns Hopkins University, adding that the mayor is being prudent by not announcing additional cuts before finishing a broader assessment because "you wouldn't want someone shooting from the hip."
Rawlings-Blake also cautioned that it would be "catastrophic" if the city were to ignore a $64 million crisis involving the police and firefighters pension fund. The Greater Baltimore Committee, which was charged with recommending solutions to the issue, is slated to release a report Wednesday.
In one of her last acts as council president, Rawlings-Blake introduced a bill that would limit the mayor's control of the city's ethics board. Currently, the mayor appoints four of the five members and the fifth is the city solicitor, who serves at the mayor's will, or the solicitor's designee. Under Rawlings-Blake's proposal, the council president and comptroller would each appoint one member and the mayor would choose the other three.
"It's rare for any elected official to forfeit power," Rawlings-Blake said. "But for me, this decision was easy because it was the right and decent thing to do."
She assured Bernard C. "Jack" Young, elected by the City Council members to replace her as president, that she would be a "true partner" and "honest friend."
Many of the cuts she suggested, including the trims to the mayor's office, are ideas that she had discussed as council president, Young said. The council plans to work closely with the mayor through the budget process, he said.
