Dennis The Cynic delivers his previously promised analysis of our illustrious mayor’s 10 year plan, State of the City, and all that other good stuff as mentioned on our previous podcast. Consider it your weekend homework assignment, Baltimore!
The document: http://www.
The Mayor, Live: http://live.
If the past few weeks has shown us anything it’s that Baltimore has problems on the horizon. This isn’t a new fact to anyone, but the city population has been dwindling over the past five decades. As it has declined – and concurrently, as Baltimore’s political influence has dropped – Baltimore’s revenue sources have dried up. When you factor in decades of municipal neglect and misspending (which much of our leadership fails to acknowledge or want to amend) this bad situation becomes even worse.
With this historical knowledge in mind, I entered the State of the City speech with an open mind. I tried to consider the magnitude of problems facing Baltimore, and the overwhelming task facing the Mayor. Especially in light of what the $588,000 report said (that anyone paying attention could have told her, but that’s another issue.).
When the State of The City Speech was given, I listened carefully. I read the prepared remarks. I was sympathetic to the Mayor’s challenges and even thought that aspects of what she said were noteworthy.
Then I read this: http://www.
After I read the document, I was first infuriated, but then disappointed. Primarily because I knew it meant that the proposals would lead to more of the same for Baltimore. In fairness, the Editorial Board of The Baltimore Sun disagreed with me in the commentary they gave here; http://www.baltimoresun.com/
1) Taxation is only going to exacerbate the challenges here for businesses and citizens.
To help plug the long term deficits, the Mayor has proposed a series of fee increases that will impact multiple areas of business in the city. These include a 50 cent tax on taxi rides, a billboard advertising tax increase, a trash user fee, and a restaurant tax.
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The addition of policies such as these paint Baltimore as an increasingly hostile city to start a company. Baltimore is already at a strategic disadvantage when compared to Baltimore County due to its property taxes, but the addition of charges in advertising and restaurant taxes will only discourage companies from starting here even more. The end result is that businesses will see Baltimore as an increasingly difficult place to sustain themselves, especially in light of the zoning code shifts that will likely close many liquor stores throughout the city, with other unforeseen conflicts for other new businesses.
Furthermore, the suggestion the report makes – namely that the cab increases will primarily impact out of towners – is simply false. We know residents use taxis for a number of things including emergency travel, picking up groceries, and making inebriated weekend trips when they shouldn’t be driving. As always, citizens will pay to undo the fiscal mistakes made by our leadership.
2) City Hall largely stinks at projecting revenue, and charges.
Much of the report hinges on whether or not you believe Baltimore’s projections for the next ten years. In my case, I do not given the city’s poor history of predicting anything related to money. It wasn’t too long ago that City Hall predicted that the Bottle Tax and Grand Prix would yield millions upon millions of dollars for the city, only to be very short of estimates months later. On the other hand, Speed Camera revenue greatly exceeded projections (which may be the end result of a shoddy system, but that’s another story).
When you consider nearly every aspect of monetary policy the city has to offer it’s clear that Baltimore has largely been a disappointment. Over the past year we’ve heard of significant issues in city billing, credits, and projections . Until the city proves its capability to properly manage its current system it is not worthy of any further revenue.
3) Even with the revenue, what good will extra money be without audits?
An interesting aspect of the report was its focus on audits. A quick search of the document will reveal that the phrase “Audit” was mentioned multiple times.
Sadly, although audits and analysis exposed Baltimore’s long term problems, the current Mayoral administration isn’t interested in implementing it on a larger scale. Despite repeated calls for audits, the current administration’s best offer was a largely toothless bill that examines less than a quarter of all of the city’s current agencies once every four years. http://www.
Even if Baltimore increases its revenue streams it won’t matter if we aren’t aware of where the revenue is going. Baltimore’s current system – and even its passed reforms – will not make this possible.
4) The mayor suggests fixing the PILOT arrangements for non profits, but no one else.
Another centerpiece of the Mayor’s reforms is fixing the current tax agreements that Baltimore has the non-profit organizations that have property here. This is certainly a significant problem as non-profits own vast swaths of city property. However, the Mayor makes no such mention of doing the same for the many developers that own prime real estate in the city. In fact, a quick search on the internet reveals that Baltimore is giving away benefits with more zeal than ever.The most egregious of these acts is the series of tax breaks extended to Harbor Point, which is where the new Exelon building will go, and is without question some of the most valuable real estate in the city despite its now Enterprise Zone status. http://www.baltimorebrew.
I believe the long term solution is to lower taxes for everyone so that such breaks aren’t necessary, but until then the Mayor should at least treat both beneficiaries equally. Unfortunately, as always, the developers get the goodies and everyone else is left holding the bag.
5) Roads, Bridges, Pipes, Schools… Arena?
The report highlights a series of pending infrastructure problems with the roads (Baltimore is currently under performing with repair and maintenance of roads and streets), schools (most of Baltimore’s public school system is crumbling), and pipes (Baltimore is significantly behind in keeping pipes up to date). Yet during the discussions, the report highlights the need to build a new arena. As a citizen who uses roads, pipes and schools more often than any Arena, it is an insult to me that an Arena is being discussed. Furthermore, it is precisely this lack of prioritization that has created Baltimore’s mess to begin with.
The biggest feckin’ folly is the property tax issue. A 22% drop is not enough to incent people to move in to the city. We need tax rates on par with the surrounding jurisdictions (where, thanks to the housing bubble, homes in some suburbs like Parkville are now as affordable as those in the city). Otherwise, it’s just a slow, stupid revenue bleed.
I think it’s the height of arrogance that she didn’t consider Jody Landers’ platform: Adjust tax rates for homeowners to 1%; for vacant home owners to 5%; and for blighted home owners to 10%. It provides motivation for absent owners to clean up their properties—or risk losing them at tax sale.
That’s the problem with SRB. She’s a maintainer. Not an innovator. Her 10,000 family idea was a pie-in-the-sky political pecker-pull. Her policies may very well end up losing us 10,000 families by the time the decade’s over.
Finally, Dennis and Evan, you guys mused on her running for state or national office in the podcast: that ship’s dead in the water. She’s got the charisma of a dead librarian and her ideas would look better in crayon. No chance she goes any further than the minor leagues: state senate.
Is this the same person who’s been a huge part of City Government for over 25 years. Rather then pay a out of state company a fee to present these facts of the long term city budget, she should have tried something different. Leave her office and ask any city resident where they thought the city finical future is heading. It’s seems everyone who’s left in town understood the facts but her.