Baltimore leaders unanimously pass budget, push for more fiscal accountability

BALTIMORE (WBFF) — Baltimore City Councilmembers recently passed a nearly $5 billion budget. While the budget makes several key investments in public safety, immigrant affairs, and youth resources, there’s also been some scrutiny on the push to expand the Mayor’s Office.

During the budget discussion, Baltimore City Councilman Yitzy Schleifer pushed back on the idea of a $4.5 million increase to the Mayor’s office, and adding new positions for a total of 134 staffers. A decade ago, the office had just 39 staffers, growing to 105 by 2025.

“We have so many agencies strapped that need extra help, need new equipment and instead that money is going toward their administration for record level staffing. I’m not sure how they can fit 134 people in those offices,” Schleifer said back in April.

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While the budget was unanimously passed on Wednesday, in response to the concerns previously presented about the Mayor’s Office growing, Baltimore City Council President Zeke Cohen said the funding is going toward offices providing services that Baltimoreans rely on. For instance, the FY 2027 budget includes an additional $1.6 million investment for the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs for legal and mental health services for immigrant families.

Previously, a spokesperson with the Mayor’s office “these changes occur through various position swaps between the Mayoralty and other agencies. Only one position is a truly new additional role, the rest already existed elsewhere and now are organized under the Mayoralty. None of the 16 positions reflect the addition of any personal political aides for the Mayor.”

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“We never want any agency to overspend,” Cohen said. “There’s been a lot Rigorous debate with the council and the administration about what we call ghost pins, which are positions that get funded in a budget and then don’t get filled, and there’s this sloshing of overtime funding that goes around, and we’ve had two years of really robust debate, and I will thank the City Administrator, because in this budget they have moved pretty aggressively to reduce the amount of ghost pins, they’ve done a lot of good hiring, but there is still too much overtime within the city’s budget. We have to good steward of the taxpayer dollars, and so you’re going to continue to see this Council fight for fiscal accountability.”

However, Cohen acknowledged some overtime was necessary.

“There’s never going to be a time where there will be no overtime for City employees, but our job as the City Council is to continue to pay attention to those practices, work with the City Administrator, Faith Leach, and all of the agency heads to make sure it’s not excessive,” Cohen added.