BALTIMORE — The budget for the city has finally been approved by the city council. This comes after ongoing budget hearings over the past few weeks.
RELATED: Public safety budget hearings cause debate among city leaders
For the first time in 125 years, city council members were able to cut from the mayors proposed budget for the city and reallocate those funds. city council president Nick Mosby said it’s something people in the community voted for through the charter amendment that gave the city council the authority to reallocate those funds.
“We reallocate to some of the priorities that we felt we put it in three buckets, one public safety, two youth and education, and three you know providing better environments, working environments for our workers, particularly our laborers,” council president Mosby said .
These were just three of the areas that were part of the deciding factor when reallocating $10 million of the initial funds from Mayor Brandon Scott’s proposed budget for the city.
“So this is new for everybody, it’s new for the administration, it’s new for the council. So we wanted to take a very pragmatic approach, and methodical approach to ensure that we were as fiscally responsible as possible,” Mosby said.
Which included identifying meaningful ways of cutting the funds and going after priorities the council identified through the budget process. After school programs for kids through park and recs was one area in need of more funding.
“Another one is to ensure that young folks in the city have access to vocational training and expanding programs an opportunity there. Obviously, we want to provide the best possible outcomes for our young folks,” Mosby said.
Another area was improving fire apparatus like safety gear, and equipment for our firefighters, which was not in the initial funds being distributed from ARAP. Mosby said they also approved to enhance working conditions for DPW’s sanitation workers.
“During the pandemic many of these employees were deemed as essential, but yet the working conditions are completely unacceptable. So we wanted to make sure that we diverted a significant amount of money towards those facilities so our laborers, folks that are in back of trash trucks, when they get back, they can take a shower and have a quality bathroom to clean up in before they go home,” Mosby said.
It’s something former DPW worker and current city council member Anthony Glover of District 13 said is in the best interest of those workers.
“I think just from a morale perspective, me working in the city of Baltimore in that position for 16 years, I know that there was no bathroom’s, locker rooms, the morale of employees was just down,” Glover said.
Another important area, expanding CitiWatch. Money is allotted to expand the camera system as well as improve the infrastructure.
“Looking at it just from an empirical data perspective, cameras work, particularly residential cameras, for some of the complaints that we get, so ensuring that we tuned up that rebate program. Also, from the city watch perspective, ensuring that we have the infrastructure that’s in place to provide the best possible outcomes for public safety, and apprehending certain suspects.
Lastly, it's thanks to almost 1,800 vacant positions in the city that those funds were available to pass what city council leaders are calling a balanced budget.
