Finance Department

Patricia "Tricia" McNelis, a longtime Bon Secours Health System employee, died of brain cancer at her Catonsville home Dec. 23. She was 46. Born in Philadelphia, Ms. McNelis briefly lived in Massachusetts before moving to Winter Haven, Fla., with her family in the mid-1960s. She attended Catholic schools from kindergarten to 12th grade and was a 1979 graduate of Santa Fe High School in Lakeland, Fla. Afterward, she attended the University of South Florida in Tampa for a little more than a year.

Although high school senior Heather Snyder is years away from her dream job as an international finance manager, she is only months from reaching the first step toward that goal.In May, when Snyder, 16, graduates from Northeast High School in Pasadena, she will also be a graduate of the Academy of Finance, where she has gained much of the business knowledge she will need to pursue her dreams."It is the best way to learn about my field," Snyder said yesterday at Annapolis High School, where state politicians and educators gathered to announce a partnership with the National Academy Foundation -- the organization that came up with the academy concept.

Baltimore Mayor-elect Martin O'Malley announced his first Cabinet picks yesterday, selecting his city solicitor and finance director, but will likely be inaugurated Tuesday without having filled several key posts.O'Malley chose Thurman Zollicoffer, a white-collar criminal defense lawyer, as the city's top attorney. O'Malley selected Peggy J. Watson, a former deputy director in the city Finance Department, as his finance director.Zollicoffer, 37, a lifelong Baltimore resident, worked with O'Malley as a state prosecutor and is a partner in the law firm of Whiteford, Taylor & Preston.

Circuit Court Clerk Frank M. Conaway is asking the Baltimore finance department to more quickly process land records, including the transfer of tax checks that go uncashed for long periods, he said.Conaway, a Democrat running for City Council president, said backlogs in the city's land records office have caused weeks of delays in the recording of deeds."It takes the city weeks to do simple clerical tasks that are done in a matter of days in most counties," said Conaway, who was elected in September.

FLUSH WITH cash, some city politicians seem to have XTC forgotten that bad times inevitably follow good.Instead of planning for future adversities, they are pandering to various pressure groups. Spend, spend, spend is the credo of the day.This, of course, is awfully shortsighted. And it flies in the face of a strategy the city's finance department proposed to Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke in early 1991.The cornerstone of the finance department's plan was a recommendation that the city create a 15 percent set-aside from its revenue growth.

In the wake of an audit detailing slipshod accounting practices and thousands of dollars in missing receipts in the XTC Baltimore sheriff's office, city officials said yesterday that they are considering a takeover of the agency's cash-handling duties.Sheriff John W. Anderson says that's not a bad idea."Any way that we can avoid this problem from happening in the future, I'm with," he said, responding to a suggestion that the city finance department handle the daily collection of criminal fines, civil fees and other court costs.

Westminster City Council members had planned to relieve overcrowding in City Hall by moving the finance department into the former National Guard Armory on Longwell Avenue.Then they found out how much it would cost.Architect Martha Jones' preliminary cost estimate came in two weeks ago at $1.2 million, more than three times the $350,000 budgeted for the project.A major reason for the additional cost was that the finance department's space needs could be met only by putting it on the first and second floors, said Thomas B. Beyard, city planning director.

For the second time in about a year, the Howard County auditor has criticized the police department for sloppy record keeping -- this time for losing track of more than 2,000 parking tickets.The earlier audit, conducted in October 1992, uncovered an $8,000 theft in the property section. Unlike the previous audit, no theft of county money has been uncovered.The missing tickets appear to be the result of careless handling and flawed procedures.Nonetheless, "when a book or ticket is unaccounted for, the possibility of misappropriation of county funds increases," said assistant auditor Brenda Dean.

The city charter is Baltimore's constitution. It defines the officials' functions and prescribes the bureaucratic arrangement for governing the city. As a literary effort it is akin to the Chronicles of the Old Testament. It would bore most people.Over the past three years a commission has been updating the charter. During that time, comments were sought from the general public at an advertised hearing. No one showed up.The commission has now released its draft report amid controversy concerning City Comptroller Jacqueline F. McLean, whose conduct is under grand jury and ethics probes.

During his five years in office, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke has often been an unconventional politician. So it is not surprising that he has launched a major reorganization without the public fanfare that usually accompanies such overhauls.The first stage involves merging the 1,843-worker Department of Transportation into the Department of Public Works. The result: a huge bureaucracy of 6,250 employees, second in size to the Department of Education. The merger should be completed in a few months.

Baltimore City Council members are threatening to cut pet programs from Mayor Sheila Dixon's office as they scour the city's $2.2 billion budget for money to offset her proposed cuts to recreation centers, community pools and Police Athletic League centers. Tuesday evening, they focused on the mayor's Office of Neighborhoods, describing the $580,000 program as "duplicative" with the services already provided by the city. "If I had to make a choice and it was the Mayor's Office of Neighborhoods or Parks and Recreation," said Councilman Edward Reisinger, "I can't see the rationale for laying off rec center directors."

A property tax credit meant to lure new residents to Baltimore and spur development in impoverished neighborhoods instead rewards current city dwellers who inhabit booming parts of the city, according to a report issued by the city's Finance Department. In the past nine months, 75 percent of the applications for the program, called the Newly Constructed Dwelling Tax Credit, came from 10 neighborhoods, according to the finance data. Forty percent of the credits went to households earning more than $100,000 a year.

The powerful panel that oversees Baltimore City Hall spending unanimously agreed Wednesday to give city agencies more leeway in making purchases, a change that officials believe will save the city money but that reduces oversight of some transactions. Under the new policy, city agencies will have the authority to make purchases of up to $5,000 without formal approval from the finance department. The previous limit was $1,000. "It is a lot of paperwork to put a requisition in," Mayor Sheila Dixon said.

Members of Baltimore's Board of Fire Commissioners will receive their final paychecks at the end of this month, after a recent discovery by the city's Finance Department that the members have not been eligible for a city stipend since 1996. A provision authorizing pay for the commissioners was removed from the city's charter when it was revised under Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke's administration more than a decade ago. But, apparently, neither the commissioners nor the city department that writes the checks realized it. The board members have continued to receive nominal pay from the city - roughly $3,600 a year for each member and $4,200 for the president.

Charles L. Benton Jr., a close aide to Gov. William Donald Schaefer whose financial acumen helped make Baltimore's revival possible, died of pneumonia yesterday at Union Memorial Hospital. The longtime city resident was 91. Mr. Benton oversaw Baltimore's finances for 30 years - first as budget director and then as head of the city finance department - but his influence at City Hall, and later at the State House, extended far beyond balancing the books. Mr. Schaefer, who was on a first-name basis with all of his chief deputies, regularly referred to his budget adviser as "Mr. Benton" - a mark of their mutual respect.

Baltimore's Finance Department and the offices of the city's powerful Board of Estimates have been ordered to turn over documents to the Maryland state prosecutor's office, which has been engaged in a long-standing investigation at City Hall. City officials said the subpoenas were served in November but did not reach Mayor Sheila Dixon's Finance Department or the offices of the Board of Estimates until this week because of a mistake by city officials. Their existence has not previously been disclosed publicly.

Patricia "Tricia" McNelis, a longtime Bon Secours Health System employee, died of brain cancer at her Catonsville home Dec. 23. She was 46. Born in Philadelphia, Ms. McNelis briefly lived in Massachusetts before moving to Winter Haven, Fla., with her family in the mid-1960s. She attended Catholic schools from kindergarten to 12th grade and was a 1979 graduate of Santa Fe High School in Lakeland, Fla. Afterward, she attended the University of South Florida in Tampa for a little more than a year.

Henry F. Constantine, a retired CSX financial analyst and singer, died of respiratory failure March 2 at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. He was 89 and lived at the Pickersgill Retirement Community in Towson. Mr. Constantine, who was born in Baltimore and raised on Elmora Avenue, graduated in 1934 from Polytechnic Institute. He earned a bachelor's degree in 1951 in finance and transportation from the University of Baltimore, where he graduated with honors. A third-generation Baltimore & Ohio Railroad employee -- his grandfather was a conductor and his father worked in the finance department -- he joined the railroad in 1934 as a clerk working in its headquarters building at Baltimore and Charles streets.

The student: Neikille Moore, 16 School: River Hill High Special achievement: National Merit Scholarship semifinalist. High school juniors are screened through their PSAT scores and then selected based on grades and activities. Neikille was "terribly surprised. I was actually ... questioning my academic abilities, and that's really helped me get back my confidence a lot." Extracurricular activities in which she is involved: She is treasurer of her school's Future Business Leaders of America, which competed on the national level last year.

Baltimore officials are investigating claims that a former city worker cheated scores of drivers by pocketing cash in bogus deals that were supposed to give discounts on parking fines. The parking fine collector -- whose name was not released -- issued paperwork to drivers who owed large parking fines so that they could renew their license plates with the state Motor Vehicle Administration, which is normally impossible without paying all fines, according to city officials. But the residents later complained they had been ripped off -- often by hundreds or thousands of dollars each -- when the city notified them that their fines still existed and had grown by $16 per month in penalties.