Mayor Rawlings-Blake, Finance Department Release FY2013 ...

In Downtown, News / By Kevin Lynch / 21 March 2012 / 0 comments

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 21, 2012

Today, the Department of Finance presented the Preliminary Budget for Fiscal Year 2013 to the Board of Estimates. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said the budget closes a $48 million deficit while fully funding the City?s obligation to public schools, continuing an aggressive plan to hire hundreds of new police officers, and providing funding for street repair and blight elimination?all while cutting property taxes for homeowners.

The FY2013 Operating Budget represents a 0.1% increase in City spending and a 1% decrease in general fund expenditures over the previous fiscal year. The Preliminary Budget Plan was built in the spirit of the Mayor?s long-term vision for growing Baltimore?s population by 10,000 families. The Budget focuses on efficient operations, innovative strategies, and sustainable policies and prioritizes spending on the key issues that matter most to Baltimore?s families: crime reduction, public education, economic growth, and core services for neighborhoods.

?When you ask families what they need in order to stay in Baltimore, it is safe neighborhoods, good schools, job opportunities, and lower property taxes. This budget focuses on the fundamentals that will help get Baltimore growing again,? Mayor Rawlings-Blake. ?At the same time we are making progress reducing crime and improving our schools, we have to do everything reasonable to reduce the property tax burden on homeowners. And we need to pay for it without slashing the budget for basic City services that neighborhoods rely on.?

The FY2013 Preliminary Budget?Efficient, Innovative, and Sustainable:

• Reduces property taxes. The Budget Plan includes the first installment of the Mayor?s Targeted Homeowners? Tax Credit, which will reduce the effective property tax rate for owner-occupied homes by 20 cents over the next eight years.
• Fully funds police patrol; public education contribution.
• Invests in Vacants to Value, neighborhood blight elimination, street resurfacing, and core sanitation services.
• Ends three straight years of furloughs; no COLA increases.
• Reduces the City?s healthcare costs by up to $25 million annually and reduces OPEB liabilities while continuing to provide comprehensive, competitive, and affordable benefits to employees and retirees. The health plan changes are the first installment of early recommendations from the Mayor?s 10-year Financial Plan.
• Cuts payroll processing costs by paying all employees twice a month instead of weekly or bi-weekly; consolidates the 311 and 911 call centers; reduces towing costs by competing contracts.
• Expands the use of illegal dumping cameras; uses Madvac sidewalk sweepers to more efficiently clean business districts; fills vacant street and alley cleaning positions.
• Makes an Innovation Fund investment of $2 million to replace the City?s 800 MHz line with new fiber optic technology as part of an inter-county broadband network. This project will increase bandwidth for users of the network; increase connectivity for City agencies, schools, police, and fire stations; and generate revenue for the City.

Better Schools

Better Schools is one of the Mayor?s highest priorities. Funding for Better Schools represents an investment in Baltimore?s greatest asset: our youth. This priority aims to promote lifelong learning, community engagement and partnerships, and to reduce duplication of services for youth. An emphasis on preserving resources for educational opportunities for Baltimore?s youth is reflected in the recommended funding levels.

• Increases Maintenance of Effort funding by $3.4 million for the Baltimore City Public School System.
• Funds a new service delivery strategy by the Family League that will directly impact more students with fewer dollars.
• Keeps all library branches open, but may reduce service hours at some locations as a result of $500,000 in library employee pension costs proposed to be shifted from the State.

Safer Streets

Creating and maintaining a safe city requires both long-term preventive measures and the capacity for effective response to crime, fire, accidents, and other emergencies.

• Funds police patrol at the current level. The Police Department will be able to continue the Mayor?s aggressive officer hiring program.
• Increases funding for the Crime Camera Management service to support the operation of 550 cameras across the city.
• Maintains funding for Youth Violence Prevention and Animal Services.
• Funds a pedestrian safety initiative to improve education, enforcement, and engineering strategies.
• Fully Funds EMS services. Over 80% of 911 call demand is for medical emergencies.
• Converts three rotating fire company closures to permanent closures, reducing long-term costs without laying off firefighters or impacting response time.

Stronger Neighborhoods

Strong neighborhoods have healthy real estate markets; are well-maintained and safe; and have clean, green open spaces, relevant and desirable amenities, optimal levels of homeownership, and engaged neighbors with strong community organizations.

• Funds blight elimination services, including the Mayor?s Vacants to Value initiative, vacant property cleaning and boarding, and urban farms.
• Funds Operation Orange Cone in order to resurface 200 lane miles of city streets.
• Continues transition to recreation center model approved in FY 2012 budget. Fully funds recreation centers based on the new model . Under this plan, of the centers currently in operation: 30 will be run as model centers, six will be run by nonprofit partners, five may be taken over by BCPS, seven will operate as after-school centers with limited hours, and eight could close as of July 1, 2012.
• Reduces funding for the Liquor Board. The City will study ways to improve the productivity of liquor license inspectors.

A Growing Economy

A Growing Economy leverages public-private-nonprofit partnerships, respects and supports diversity, and recognizes the interconnectivity of all economic factors?investment, key economic drivers, workforce, quality of life, and infrastructure.

• Increases funding for the YouthWorks summer jobs program. By developing partnerships with more private sector employers, an additional 350 young people will be able to participate in the program year-round.
• Funds new Community Job Hubs to extend the reach of the City?s workforce development services into economically disadvantaged neighborhoods.
• Increases General Fund support for the Baltimore Development Corporation to offset the loss of capital funding and help attract and retain businesses?including Neighborhood Mainstreets Program, Small Business Resource Center, and Emerging Technology Center.
• Provides additional funding for preventive bridge maintenance. It is estimated that this preventative maintenance will save the City between $700,000 and $900,000 on citywide cleaning over the next five years.
• Maintains funding for key cultural institutions, such as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts.

Innovative Government

An innovative government adopts organizational change and encourages employee feedback and ideas, utilizes technology and best practices to streamline processes, leverages public and private partnerships to assist in service delivery, constantly re-evaluates and refines its internal business functions to be more efficient and effective, and encourages customer-friendly service.

• Increases funding for the Property Tax Billing Integrity and Recovery unit to add staff for tax credit audits and recover money owed the City. The program has already identified more than $2 million of erroneous or fraudulent tax credits and reported them to the State Department of Assessments and Taxation.
• Provides funding to expand CitiStat, the City?s performance management process.
• Begins a transition of outdated business applications from the mainframe to a more modern platform.
• Initiates a three year plan to make COB University, the City?s employee training service, financially self-sufficient.

A Cleaner and Healthier City

A cleaner and healthier city reaches all aspects of public health: the physical (clean water, clean air, and safe buildings), as well as service aspects (drug treatment, health education, and clinical assistance).

• Maintains funding for 1+1 trash and recycling collection. Due to savings from a new agreement with the City?s waste-to-energy facility, the City does not plan to implement a fee for regular bulk trash pickup in Fiscal 2013.
• Maintains funding for Urban Forestry. This service will realize efficiencies from new unit cost contracts and pilot a proactive pruning program.
• Funds 150 additional overflow beds for persons utilizing temporary housing.
• Provides additional funding for Emergency Health Services to hire a nurse/epidemiologist to improve surveillance of viral hepatitis, conduct patient education, and better identify and control outbreaks in the City.

Preliminary Budget Background:

For Fiscal 2013, the City confronts a $48 million budget shortfall. For the first time since the economic downturn, property tax revenues will drop. At the same time, the cost of maintaining the current level of City services continues to grow. Compared to Fiscal 2008, General Fund revenue is down by $13 million?despite $50 million in tax and fee increases approved in 2010?while fixed costs (pension, retiree health, debt service, school payments) have grown by more than $120 million.

?Baltimore, like many local governments, is still feeling the effects of the Great Recession and the real estate downturn,? Mayor Rawlings-Blake said. ?Through sacrifice and smart budgeting, we will ensure that City Government tightens its belt to get more value for every tax dollar by doing what families are doing everyday: making tough choices about what we can afford and focusing our scarce resources on the core priorities that will help get Baltimore growing again.?

In the four years since the onset of the Great Recession, the City of Baltimore has closed budget shortfalls totaling more than $400 million while maintaining?and even improving?the performance of core public safety, sanitation, health, and youth development services?all without raising property taxes. It has done so by prioritizing spending, delivering services more efficiently, reforming retiree pension and health programs, and diversifying and enhancing revenue.

Where these actions were not enough to balance the budget, the City has had to make some difficult spending reductions that are not sustainable for the long term, such as freezing pay and hiring, furloughing employees, zeroing out Highway User Revenue capital spending, and using fund balance.

Health Plan Reforms to Reduce Costs:

The City?s employee and retiree health benefit costs grew by $100 million or 75% from 2000 to 2010, with no increase in the workforce. These costs constitute more than 10% of the entire operating budget and health care inflation persists at unsustainable levels.

Mayor Rawlings-Blake has already taken steps to reduce retiree drug benefit costs by nearly $20 million a year, but these steps alone are not enough to achieve sustainability. In order to address health care costs comprehensively, the Mayor has ordered a top-to bottom review of all employee health benefits as part of her 10-year Financial Plan initiative. The review included a detailed analysis of the City?s current health benefit programs for active employees and retirees, including: descriptions of the benefit structure, historical and projected costs in the context of national health care cost trends and the City?s overall fiscal environment, and comparisons to neighboring jurisdictions in Maryland.

This year, as part of the Preliminary Budget Plan, Mayor Rawlings-Blake is proposing changes to further reduce the cost of employee and retiree health benefits. These changes are expected to save nearly $10 million in Fiscal 2013 and more than $20 million annually. The changes will not take effect until January 1, 2013.

Benefit changes for active and retired employees include:

• City will continue to provide comprehensive, competitive, and affordable health benefits.
• No change to medical premium co-shares.
• A 20% prescription drug premium co-share.
• New standard POS medical plan with the same coverage, similar premiums, and higher out-of-pocket costs.
• Participants can buy up to current benefit plans or reduce costs by joining an HMO.
• Changes being discussed with labor unions.

State and Federal Funding Issues:

At the time of this plan?s release, State funding for Fiscal 2013 remains highly uncertain. TheGovernor?s budget proposes to shift a portion of teacher pension costs to local jurisdictions, which would cost Baltimore $21 million in Fiscal 2013 and $33 million by Fiscal 2017. The revenue offsets in the Governor?s plan are estimated to be at least $4.5 million short of covering the City?s costs in the first year, and those offsets are expected to shrink in the outyears. The Preliminary Budget Plan does not include any funding for the teacher pension shift.

More Budget Information:

More information about the Fiscal Year 2013 Preliminary Budget, the budgeting process and materials about Outcome Budgeting can be found at:

http://www.baltimorecity.gov/Government/AgenciesDepartments/Finance/DocumentsReports.aspx.

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