Baltimore City Council Approves $2.4B Budget

The Baltimore City Council approved a $2.4 Billion operating budget on Monday evening. 

The budget, which closed a $30 million deficit, includes a 25 cents excise fee on cab fares, a tax on billboards and keeps the parking tax set at 20 percent.

It also drops the city's property tax rate from $2.268 per $100 of assessed value to $2.248 per $100 of assessed value.  

Here are Rawlings-Blake's prepared remarks following the budget's approval: 

"Thank you Mr. President. I want to take a moment to thank you, the Board of Estimates, and members of the City Council for approving the fiscal 2014 budget. Earlier this year, we released Change to Grow: A Ten-Year Financial Plan for Baltimore, a first-of its-kind, long-term fiscal road map to help achieve our goal to grow Baltimore by 10,000 families over the next decade.

The plan includes a bold set of major reforms to fundamentally change the way the city does business. The fiscal 2014 budget and associated reforms mark the first major steps toward implementing the Ten-Year Financial Plan. Implementing the plan will help:

• Eliminate a serious $750 million structural budget deficit—protecting public safety from budget cuts.
• Double city funding for school construction and renovation, which will help finance our historic $1.1 billion effort to build 15 new schools and significantly renovate as many as 30 more.
• Allow new investments in neighborhood infrastructure—including repairing roads and rebuilding ten recreation centers—and providing a funding surge for the demolition of more than 4,000 vacant homes.
• All while further reducing the property tax burden on city homeowners.

The FY2014 budget closes a $30 million shortfall while fully funding the city’s obligation to public schools, hiring hundreds of new police officers, and providing funding for street repair and after-school programs.

As I mentioned before, this budget cuts taxes for city homeowners yet again to $2.168 per $100 of assessed value, representing a ten cent cut over two years. The budget also maintains funding for 5,000 YouthWorks summer jobs, fully funds the Small Business Resource Center, and expands the Emerging Technology Center incubator program.

Again, I’d like to thank the City Council for its ongoing cooperation in helping to implement the reforms in the Ten-Year Financial Plan, starting with this year’s budget. This continuing effort requires tough trade-offs and major changes to past practices—but doing so will help us make smart investments that reward the future and help to get Baltimore growing again. Thank you."