City Agencies

The city Board of Estimates is expected today to renew the contract of a consultant hired last year to improve how city government develops and delivers its public image. The new agreement will pay Michael Cryor $150 an hour to continue his work of restructuring the communications office that handles the public and media relations of Mayor Martin O'Malley and city agencies. Cryor has earned about $45,000 since he was hired in November at an hourly rate of $125. He is expected to complete his work by August at a potential cost to the city of $100,000.

The city of Baltimore is likely wasting tens of thousands of dollars a month on "phantom" phone lines that are never used, the city's new information technology director said Thursday. Chris Tonjes, who heads the Mayor's Office of Information Technology, said he's discovered 51 idle phone lines in his agency alone. He recommended that the city conduct an audit to review the status of its estimated 14,000 lines - and said that based on audits in other cities, Baltimore probably could save 15 percent of its $16 million annual phone bill.

WHAT'S HAPPENING to Mayor Martin O'Malley's plan to take control of 5,000 derelict houses by 2004? Most of the target properties have been identified, and a year-long acquisition process is getting started. But this optimistic timetable could be in jeopardy. Denise M. Duval, the city's top housing code enforcer who oversaw the project, resigned recently. Now Michael Braverman, who was an acting deputy housing commissioner during Ms. Duval's three-month maternity leave, is on a two-month paternity leave.

WE ALL LOVE rankings and comparisons. That's why so many magazines, trade journals and surveys publish "the best" and "the worst" lists. Take your pick: Every want and need has a list -- restaurants, hair dryers, dog food, detergent. There is a new list this city should talk about as it prepares for the Sept. 9 municipal primary election. It ranks Baltimore behind Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia in community development efforts. Baltimore has poorly defined its hopes and dreams for improving the city, says Paul C. Brophy, author of the rankings and a well-respected national expert in these matters.

With Baltimore facing its biggest deficit in his tenure, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke vowed yesterday to come up with comprehensive cost-cutting plan within three weeks and did not rule out the possibility of layoffs.Mr. Schmoke has ordered a top-to-bottom review of all city agencies and plans to meet with leaders of the municipal labor unions to find ways to close a $32 million budget gap.Beyond flatly rejecting a proposal to defer school employees' pay, Mr. Schmoke would not say what options are being considered to balance the $2.3 billion budget, as required by the city charter.

TOO MANY TIMES lack of technology has been blamed by Baltimore officials for their failings. Last spring, the recreation department blamed its non-computerized record-keeping for its ignorance of how much each recreation center collects in activity fees. A few months ago, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke blamed the lack of centralized record-keeping for a delay in completing a report on legal fees paid by the city. And the Housing Department recently said its antiquated records system was part of the reason it didn't know that poor people with Section 8 housing vouchers were concentrating in the Patterson Park community.

Dealing a setback to Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke's privatization efforts, the Board of Estimates canceled yesterday a contract with a private company that handled billing and fee collections for Baltimore's ambulance services.In its decision, the board -- Schmoke included -- said the private Rural/Metro Corp. of Baltimore failed to collect as much money as city workers did for ambulance services during the first six months of the pilot project.Rural/Metro had projected that the city would receive net revenue of $3.5 million a year, but from Sept.

The financial disclosure forms filled out by about 1,900 city employees will be entered into an online searchable database, the city's new Chief Information Officer told the city's ethics board Tuesday. "It's a really easy project," said Chris Tonjes, who heads the Mayor's Information Technology Office. Tonjes told board members he planned to appoint a project manager, who will create an online filing system likely for the next round of ethics forms. The deadline for elected officials and many city employees to fill out the form is April 30. At the ethics board's monthly meeting Wednesday, Tonjes asked Avery Aisenstark, the executive director of the ethics board, how many employees are required to fill out the forms.

APRIL MAY BE the cruelest month, but January has ushered in the deadliest start of a new year in Baltimore since 1999. The month isn't yet over and the city has recorded 27 murders - five of them, incredibly, in one day. Four of them allegedly were the handiwork of a pair of stickup men who were arrested Thursday. Good police work, but the arrests can't begin to answer Baltimore's climbing murder rate. Drug intelligence is the key to breaking up the illicit narcotics trade bloodying our streets.

I agree with letter writer Mac Nachlas that government agencies should be audited regularly ("City agencies should be audited periodically," June 11). It appears as though every time there is an audit of a city or state agency, corruption is found. In this era of government transparency, city and state taxpayers deserve to see that their tax dollars spent wisely. While Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake says all is well, I'm certain that is not the case, since the last few audits have turned up malfeasance.