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Baltimore City Fiscal Year 2023 Budget Toolkit

April 27, 2022 by Musaab Ibrahim in Baltimore City, Blog, Budget and Tax, Criminal Justice, Education

Baltimore City FY23 Budget

As the 2022 budget process gets underway, city residents have an opportunity tonight to weigh in on the city’s preliminary budget. This comes as policymakers weigh historic investments in education, infrastructure, and economic development, as well as increases to public safety and other priority areas. This brief will go over the budget process, major highlights of the fiscal year 2023 budget, and how you can get involved by giving testimony on the budget and its spending priorities.

Budget Process

Every year, the mayor’s administration identifies key objectives and priorities to address for the upcoming fiscal year, beginning July 1 and ending June 30. Around late fall in November, the Department of Finance develops current spending levels (CLS) and solicits request from city agencies for new spending proposals. The proposals then are evaluated by the mayor’s results team, a team of budget analysts, city employees, and residents, based on their alignment with the mayor’s objectives. The decisions are then reflected in the preliminary budget and are opened to comment. The Board of Estimates (BOE), city council and agencies, and city residents can provide feedback through the ‘Taxpayer’s Night’ held by BOE. Once BOE approves the budget, it sends an executive summary to city council for hearings and a final ‘Taxpayer’s Night’ for input. Once the budget is voted on, city council will send it back to the mayor for either total or partial approval prior to June 24 of the fiscal year.

Today is the first Taxpayer’s Night held by BOE from 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM. City residents can testify in person by signing up at the Taxpayers’ Night event outside of the BOE Chambers. Additionally, residents can sign up to testify virtually but must do so by 5 PM. Lastly, BOE is accepting written testimony through April 29. The next phase of the process will be on May 16 when BOE send the executive summary over to city council. The next Taxpayer’s Night is May 26.

Major Highlights[i]

  • Education
    • With the passage of the Kirwan Bill in 2021, the mandatory spending for Baltimore City Public Schools is set to increase over the next 7 fiscal years. As a result, the city’s Fiscal Year 23 (FY23) budget for public schools saw an increase of $65 million. Increases in spending are projected at $77 million in FY24 to $155 million though FY30. Although city funds were adequate in FY23, due to the yearly cost increase, agencies may see small trims to their budget where needed as education funding makes up a larger share of resources.
  • Public Safety
    • Amid calls to defund the police, the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) FY23 budget is set to increase by $5 million. Notably, BPD is set to hire 35 civilian investigators in place of 30 sworn officers to assist in anti-violence initiatives while the department looks to shore up its vacancy and capacity issues following the federal consent decree. Additional funding also goes towards increasing newly hired recruit salaries from $55,000 to $60,000. Lastly, rising health care benefit costs and inflation were additional costs.
  • COVID-19 Federal Aid
    • The $641 million in COVID-19 aid from the American Rescue Plan set in motion historic levels of investments to the city. So far, the mayor allocated $465.3 million to an array of different projects including:

  • The remaining $175 million is set to be allocated prior to the passage of the budget, as the other half of ARPA funds will be awarded by the Department of Treasury in May. To find more information on spending, visit our COVID-19 landing page and the ARPA Dashboard.

Community-based advocacy groups are providing support writing testimony, particularly around funding for education and police spending. Groups like Communities United and Organizing Black have templates to help you write testimony while learning about the budget and how you can be a part of the budgetary process. MDCEP will continue to track the budget as it moves through the approval process, so keep an eye on our blog and social media as well.

[i] https://bbmr.baltimorecity.gov/sites/default/files/FY23%20prelim%20final%20for%20web.pdf