City Employees

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake called Monday for "bold reforms" to fix a looming financial shortfall, including requiring more city workers to contribute to their retirement fund, charging residents for trash collection, asking firefighters to work longer hours and cutting the city workforce by 10 percent over time. In return, she said, the city could use the savings to raise employee salaries and cut property taxes by 22 percent - 50 cents per $100 of assessed value - over the next decade.

Baltimore City Council members confused caring about unemployment with abating it by giving preliminary approval to a local hire law last week. The legislation, which requires a final vote and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's signature to become law, requires businesses that are awarded city contracts over $300,000 or receive $5 million or more in city financing to hire 51 percent of new workers from within Baltimore. In promoting it, City Council members sound like they are competing for the "most compassionate" prize.

As city administrator, my position serves "at the pleasure of" the mayor who appointed me, Craig A. Moe. I understand my position may end next month; and I accept that. However, one of my most important duties and responsibilities is to protect the city's exceptional employees. City employees provide the services that make our city a great place to live, work and do business. I believe I must speak out for our valuable employees to share the feelings they have expressed to me and their co-workers.

A Baltimore city employee was killed Tuesday afternoon after a man veered off an interstate and sped onto downtown streets, flipping the car he was driving in front of City Hall, according to police and the victim's family. Matthew Hersl, an employee of 28 years who worked in the finance department and was an avid Orioles fan, was struck and taken to Maryland Shock Trauma center, where he was pronounced dead. A Maryland State trooper first encountered the driver on Interstate 83 when the driver flew up behind him at speeds that may have exceed 100 miles per hour, according to Sgt. Marc Black, a department spokesman.

Union officials say the city is considering docking the pay of police officers, firefighters and public works employees who did not report to work during the week's historic snowstorms, a move labor leaders say would be unprecedented in recent memory. Although many city employees were on liberal leave this week, "essential personnel," including public safety officers, were required to show up for their shifts or face losing a day of pay. The policy has been on the books for at least six years but has been enforced infrequently.

A dozen city Department of Transportation employees may be fired after they were accused of stealing nearly $60,000 in scrap metal, city officials said Friday. An investigation by the city's inspector general estimated the employees were earning about $191,000 annually from the sale of heavy-gauge cable stolen from Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. and the city's conduit system. The agency found evidence for only part of that sum, however, and did not know how long the alleged scheme might have continued.

As Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake pursues her goal of attracting 10,000 families to Baltimore over a decade, she might consider launching a recruiting drive down at City Hall. More than 40 percent of municipal workers reside outside the city they serve, and 5 percent don't even live in Maryland, according to statistics posted on a city website. Baltimore County is home to about a quarter of the workforce of 14,559 city workers. The figures reflect residency as of Dec. 1, according to the city's OpenBaltimore website.

Last month we reported that more than 40 percent of Baltimore City government employees live outside the city , according to the city's Open Baltimore website, which used data from December. Those records have been updated, and they show an even larger share of municipal workers now reside outside city limits. As of June 30, 47 percent of employees live elsewhere, up from 44 percent in December. The municipal government has 14,457 employees, of whom 7,726 are reported to be city residents.

  Baltimore City posted new pay data for city workers on its Open Baltimore website Wednesday, and the numbers once again illustrate how overtime can help lift incomes far above annual salary levels. The figures show that 328 municipal employees - 172 at the Police Department - received gross pay at least 50 percent above their salary. The data covers fiscal 2012, which ended June 30. Police Lt. Stephen C. Nalewajko Jr. made more money than MayorStephanie Rawlings-Blake, earning $166,200 compared to the mayor's gross pay of $161,800.

HealthPlus Inc., an expansion-minded health maintenance organization based in Greenbelt, announced yesterday that it has signed a contract to become one of several HMO plans available to city employees.The agreement means HealthPlus, which presently serves 170,000 members in Maryland, Washington and Northern Virginia, will be exposed to 27,000 potential new customers in Baltimore. The HMO already has a contract with the Baltimore Teachers Union, which has 7,800 members."I think that we are viewing Baltimore as a very potentially strong market for us," HealthPlus Chief Operating Officer Virginia Dollard said.

Baltimore City Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is trying to craft a budget that will trim expenses and property taxes to encourage an increase to the population ("First step to a better Baltimore," March 21). Reducing excessive city employees is a good first step. The big payoff would come from reexamining things the city does that are not done by competing, lower-tax suburbs. The mayor should engage an expert like former county executives Jim Smith of Baltimore County or Doug Duncan of Montgomery County to analyze things the city started doing when it was the largest, wealthiest jurisdiction, many of which enhance suburbanites' quality of life, that are no longer essential or affordable, and use the potential savings to help the city approach suburban tax rates.

A team of city employees, inmates in the state's correctional system and local volunteers gathered along Gwynns Run in Southwest Baltimore on Friday morning to clear trash and debris that had found its way into the stream. The effort, which the city said was the "first ever mass cleanup" of the stream, kicked off at 7:45 a.m., officials said. "It is our plan to remove all the trash in the stream and along the banks. We also want to point out that everyone can protect our streams, harbor and the Bay through proper trash disposal," said Department of Public Works Director Alfred H. Foxx in a statement.

Nearly half of Baltimore's municipal employees and retirees have a "critical or chronic" illness - a distinction that contributes to the high cost of providing their health insurance, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said Wednesday. "We need to improve the wellness of our workforce to reduce costs by promoting fitness and smoking cessation," Rawlings-Blake said as she released a consultants' report about the city's long-term finances. "Our workforce is unhealthy and it's driving up our costs.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake called Monday for "bold reforms" to fix a looming financial shortfall, including requiring more city workers to contribute to their retirement fund, charging residents for trash collection, asking firefighters to work longer hours and cutting the city workforce by 10 percent over time. In return, she said, the city could use the savings to raise employee salaries and cut property taxes by 22 percent - 50 cents per $100 of assessed value - over the next decade.

Baltimore city government employees are now able to devote up to two work hours per week to helping third-grade students hone their reading skills, the mayor's office announced this month. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake signed the executive order on Feb. 1, according to a release, that would allow full-time employees to volunteer in the Baltimore city school system to provide one-on-one tutoring to students struggling with reading--a cause the mayor has taken up as part of her "Third Grade Reads Initiative.

Baltimore Councilman William H. Cole IV introduced a bill Monday to limit a program that allows some city employees to take government cars home every day. Cole's bill, which is co-sponsored by Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young, would bar any city agency from granting a take-home car to anyone who uses it to travel more than 25 miles beyond the city limits, except on official city business. "It's just waste," Cole said of the program. "Some of these cars are traveling hundreds and hundreds of miles a week.

All new city government employees would have to live in Baltimore under terms of a charter amendment introduced into the Baltimore City Council last night.The measure, introduced by Councilman Wilbur E. Cunningham, would affect city employees hired after Jan. 1, 1993.The council resolution comes a month after Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke suggested that all government workers be required to live in the city.But, while Mr. Schmoke could simply issue an executive order to impose the requirement, the charter amendment could not take effect without public hearings and approval by the voters.

Sheila Jordan, president of a city employees' labor union, died of cancer Saturday at her Catonsville home -- one day after she was elected to a third term in the job. Mrs. Jordan, 49, was unopposed in the City Union of Baltimore election. She had been president of the union representing about 5,000 municipal workers since 1997. "I had a great deal of respect for her," Mayor Martin O'Malley said yesterday. "She was a strong advocate for her members and was always decent. She made her points in a pleasant, forthright, straight-up sort of way. She never resorted to personal attacks.

Brenda J. Clayburn, a founder and later president of the City Union of Baltimore who was also a longtime city Police Department supervisor, died Sunday of undetermined causes at her Northwest Baltimore home. She was 63. "She had recently been sick, and we are waiting the results of an autopsy," said her daughter, Shirley Y. Cooper, who lives in Baltimore. "I was very saddened to learn of the passing of Brenda Clayburn. Brenda was a strong advocate for the thousands of city employees she represented, and she cared deeply for their welfare," Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said in a statement Monday.