Posts Tagged ‘budget’

Baltimore and Maryland can trim energy costs by not allowing government vehicles to idle while overreacting to protests

Posted by ameister on Wednesday, January 18th, 2012

Yesterday at 6PM I ran back to the Occupy Baltimore protest site in East Baltimore on Madison street.  There were about twenty-five protesters there.  The majority of protesters were female and over 90% of them were white. I would say 75% of them were under 30 years old.  The government felt that in order to control these protesters they needed five police cars, five state trooper cars, one blocked off street, and one large Maryland State Police incident command unit. You can view some photos I took at the protest here, here, and here.  Numerous vehicles were idling including the State Police incident command unit. I can only imagine how much money was being wasted on gasoline alone, not to mention overtime pay and vehicle wear and tear.

Those of us familiar with Baltimore are quite used to seeing government employees sitting in their idling government owned vehicles. Today the Baltimore Business Journal published an article about an outside company that has been hired by Baltimore to help cut power costs!  I have a much simpler and cheaper solution: Any city employee caught on or off the job with an idling car not in traffic will be fired. That should cut fuel costs dramatically.

This photo shows that an organization associated with greed and a poor customer service owns a lot right near the jails. What a lovely neighborhood!

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I predicted the 7% sales tax three years ago

Posted by ameister on Thursday, January 12th, 2012

Our governor brought up the possibility of a 7% sales tax in Maryland. The Sun covers the story here and the Washington Post covers it here. Most of the comments left under those are articles are not in favor of the increase. Many people seemed shocked. I wonder if these are some of the same people who in 2008 criticized me for bringing up the possibility of a sales tax increase to pay for our out of control spending (check out some of the comments left under that article)?

Three years ago in this article I warned all of you that a 7% sales tax was very possible in the future. It appears we are getting very close to the future. There are two paths we can take, we can either cut spending and have state workers, people dependent on the state, and state pensioners “suffer” or we can continue to spend and waste and the tax payers can keep paying for it with new fees and tax increases. No matter what, the longer we wait to address the real issues (government spending and waste)the bigger the crash will be when things finally do blow up in our faces.

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Followups to two recent posts

Posted by ameister on Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

In my post entitled A coalition focused on moving Baltimore elections to 2014 I said that the Baltimore Election Change Coalition (BECC) needed to do a better marketing job. It turns out that they did send out a press release. A woman from the ACLU forwarded me the informative press release today and you can read it below. It looks like they are reading this blog.

A few people thought my idea to cut every single city employee’s pay by 10% was harsh.  Why should someone making $50,000 a year suddenly make $45,000 a year. In reality if the city was run efficiently and our politicians were not in bed with the unions such a drastic move would not have to be made. Instead of having three people doing the work of one we would only have one person doing the work of one person. Pension/insurance reform should have happened a long time ago.  We did not take our medicine ten years ago so now it is going to hurt much more than it would have then. Even though this all seems harsh, it is better than what is happening in the private sector.  Some people with manufacturing jobs were fired and were out of work for long periods of time. After months to years of no job these people were hired at similar jobs for 75% or less of their former pay. They gladly took these jobs.

I strongly feel that the middle to upper managers in the city bureaucracy who have gamed the system and now earn over $80,000 a year should feel the pain (fired or major salary cut) before the custodian who actually works hard and does his low paying job efficiently.

I will leave you with this reader comment from a Washington Post article about the proposed Metro fare hike:

“Where’s the 5% drop in crazy pension entitlements then?
Seriously, publicize your P&L and let the taxpayers decide if you are running a transportation company or a customer-funded retirement scheme. FYI, there IS a problem when over one-third+++ of your costs are retiree entitlements!“

MEDIA ADVISORY

New Baltimore Coalition to Hold Press Conference Calling for Moving City Elections to Match Gubernatorial Cycle

ADVISORY FOR                                  CONTACT:

January 9, 2012                                 Millie Tyssowski, LWV, milliety@earthlink.net, 410-448-2650

BALTIMORE, MD – On Monday, January 9, a newly-formed group, the Baltimore Election Change Coalition (BECC), will hold a press conference to build support and discuss its goal of changing the year of city elections to coincide with the gubernatorial cycle. Members of the coalition include the League of Women Voters of Baltimore City, American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, Baltimore City Branch of the NAACP, Citizens Planning and Housing Association, National Action Network of Greater Baltimore, Baltimore’s Safe and Sound Campaign, and Teaching Our Own Understanding and Responsibility.
In 2011, voter participation in the Baltimore City primary and general elections was at an all time low. Less than 12% of eligible voters participated in the primary; only 22% of registered voters voted. General election turnout was even worse. The BECC believes that having our City officials selected by so few voters with the expenditure of monies that the City needs in the current budget crisis calls for action now.
The BECC proposes that Baltimore City join all other major jurisdictions in the State and hold its elections at the same time as the gubernatorial election – beginning with the gubernatorial election of 2014. With more officials and issues on the ballot, more voters will turn out and democracy in Baltimore City will be strengthened. In addition, the City could potentially save several million dollars.
WHAT: Press conference to announce the Baltimore Election Change Coalition and discuss the benefits of changing the year of city elections to coincide with the gubernatorial cycle.
WHO: Representatives of the Coalition and Maryland General Assembly Legislators
WHEN: Monday, January 9, 2012 at 10 AM
WHERE: 417 E. Fayette St., Baltimore, MD

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Baltimore’s $52 million deficit: My ideas, the online tool to fix it, and the take-home cars that help fuel it

Posted by ameister on Monday, January 9th, 2012

Baltimore is going to have to find a way to fix its $52 million deficit. The city has created an interesting web page where you can decide what to cut or tax in order to fix the deficit. Check out the site here and play around with the deficit cutter tool.

It was pretty easy for me to cut the deficit  with the limited options the city provided. The bottom line is that the city payroll made up of current and former employees (pensions and insurance costs) is too high.  In most businesses you try to cut payroll and run things more efficiently when you are losing money. Baltimore city is not run efficiently. There are 14,559 city workers- one worker for every 43 residents!  Yakov Shafranovich just posted two incredible blog entries that pertain to this subject.

At this link Yakov shows how many city workers live outside of the city and the state and which departments house the most out of city and state workers.

At this link Yakov discusses the illegal tax breaks, pensions, and take-home cars that helped plunge this city into the massive deficit it finds itself in. I feel that no city employee should have a take-home car (in 2009 at least 247 city employees had take-home vehicles) and if any elected official is receiving an illegal tax break that he or she should resign and return all the money he or she owes to the city.  The sweet deal that city retirees currently get in terms of pensions and insurance needs to be more in line with the real world. Every single city employee should take a 10% pay cut and if they think that is wrong then they can try and get a job in the private sector in this economy.

We all see the city employees who do nothing or next to nothing all day and still have attitudes.  This culture of complacency and inefficiency needs to change now.  The tax payers of Baltimore are funding this disgrace and the only way things are going to change is if the money stops flowing and city workers are actually forced to earn their incomes like people do in the private sector.

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Baltimore’s property tax revenue will decline just like I predicted last year

Posted by ameister on Tuesday, December 27th, 2011

This all could have been avoided!

From yesterday’s Washington Post:

“For instance, Baltimore collected $815 million in property taxes during the most recent fiscal year, according to Bill Voorhees, Baltimore’s director of revenue and tax analysis. Next year, the figure is predicted to shrink to $803.5 million. The following year, $773 million. The year after that, $735.7 million. The year after that, $729.4 million.”

On December 24, 2010 I predicted this scenario in this blog and I pointed out that this all could have been avoided if our leaders understood simple mathematics. Had our leaders practiced fiscal restraint during this past half decade and allowed the constant yield property tax rate to be our property rate then the budget would have never grown to its current size. Our leaders chose to increase Baltimore’s budget every year and now if they do not raise property tax rates it will be impossible to maintain it. Had we cut programs and salaries in 2007 or 2008 it would have been a lot less painful than what we are about to experience. Our leaders decided to keep kicking the can down the road and hope for a miracle.  If they truly understood the numbers they would have known that eventually the game would end and cuts would be unavoidable. If any elected official proposes higher property taxes because of this “unexpected” budget shortfall then they are not fit to hold elected office.  This economic scenario was very predictable.

The time has come to reign in spending and to get rid of all of the city government patronage jobs!

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Baltimore goals to strive for

Posted by ameister on Sunday, October 2nd, 2011

With so much activism talk in the air these days I thought now would be a great time to share part of an email I received a year ago. This person wanted to start an organization built around the following very worthy reforms:
(1) Performance-based pay for teachers.
(2) Against all new bonding proposals until the city balances its budget.
(3) Reform of civil service rules for city workers to make them easier to fire.
(4) Cutting pensions down to sustainable levels comparable to the private sector.
(5) No funding of campaigns by developers with business before the city.

I like all of these ideas. Over the years I have dealt with many organizations with good ideas that lack focus. I wish these organizations would have grabbed on to concrete goals like these ones instead of abstract unattainable concepts. Change starts at the local level.

If a group could get any of the above goals accomplished then it could spiral into something much larger that could take down many negative aspects of the local Baltimore establishment. I hope BaltimoreHourly.com will help inform people about such topics so they can properly organize themselves into a force for real change in Baltimore.

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National economic news

Posted by ameister on Tuesday, September 27th, 2011

You should prepare…

YouTube Preview Image

This guy is one of the few people who has the guts to speak the truth about the current economic situation.

Do not keep all of your “savings” in the stock market.

Nearly bankrupt pension funds will seriously hurt unprepared local workers.

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It pays well to get hurt while working for the city

Posted by ameister on Friday, April 29th, 2011

Make sure you check out the following Investigative Voice bombshell:
ACCIDENT PRONE — City workers file more than 19,000 injury claims in four years

For the last four years the city has on average paid $40million a year to satisfy city employees’ injury claims! There is no way that city workers deserved such a payout. If city workers were this injured/disabled then large percentages of employees that you encountered in city facilities would be visibly injured. This is clearly not the case. It is obvious that some city employees consider inflated injury claims to be a benefit of city employment. Whoever is determining these payouts needs to be given much stricter payout guidelines to follow.  Filers of frivolous claims need to be made examples of and sent to prison for substantial periods of time. The taxpayers of Baltimore can not afford to pay millions upon millions of dollars to scammers.

For years I have been an advocate of mass bureaucratic firings. This horrendous abuse of tax payer funds by city workers supports my position. If $20million of this yearly scam could be eliminated then every city tax payer could have their tax rate go down by about 6 cents. In other words if your property is worth $100k then for the last four years you have personally contributed about $120 per year to the $160million total that was paid to injury claimants from 2007 to 2010.

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Finding and eliminating Baltimore’s government waste

Posted by ameister on Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011

Through the years I have said that Baltimore City Government wastes lots of money on useless workers and programs.  If we took some time to examine every single program and employee we would be able to cut millions of dollars from the budget by eliminating jobs, reducing pay, reducing purchases for certain programs, and reducing overtime and other job length factors. People usually counter my argument by saying “it’s much more complex than that” or “there is nothing left to cut” or “you don’t understand how government really works”. For years the excuse makers have won and things have stayed the same. Today we are living in a time period where we have hit an economic wall. If city government wishes to maintain its size or expand further then taxes will have to go. Regular citizens are living paycheck to paycheck and they can not afford to pay for any more increases in government workers’ wages. Now is the time to finally dive into the dark corners of government and get rid of the inefficiencies.

Today on Twitter I stumbled upon an unacceptable story about Baltimore City Government waste. One city worker was not doing his job and just hanging out all day while his co-worker let him get away with it. Is this case an extreme example or is it part of a much larger problem? We have all seen city workers being lazy. Now is the time for a true efficiency audit of every part of Baltimore City government.

I commend the mayor on her new transparency effort. I think part of the reason she is doing this now is to counter mayoral race competitors who may accuse her of not being transparent. We need more transparency though, and we need proposed audits like the one I mention above to be posted in full on the Internet.

City workers who do little to no work should be fired or reassigned to lesser paying jobs where they actually do something productive. A Gallup poll that came out yesterday revealed that 57% of unemployed Americans would take a job where they were paid less than $24,000 a year. 77% of unemployed Americans would take a job for less than $60,000 a year. What percentage of city employees are paid more than $60,000 a year? Of the city employees who are paid over $60,000 a year how many of them actually work and how many of them are just being retained because of seniority and “time served”? The Baltimore Sun’s Baltimore City Salary Database reveals that in 2009, 4417 city workers were paid over $60,000 a year (including overtime). The 4417 employees made a grand total of $333,865,898 in 2009! If that number could be reduced by 10% then the city would save $33million!

The leader who finally steps forward and drastically cuts the local bureaucracy will reap incredible long term political benefits and will save this city from economic ruin. Who has the guts to step up?

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We need leaders who are fiscally proactive

Posted by ameister on Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

Last night’s State of the Union speech showed that fiscal responsibility is becoming an important national talking point.  Local jurisdictions need to realize that if the federal government is finally getting around to tweaking its budget that cities and states better get with the budget cutting program.

Property taxes will be a big issue this election.  Several mayoral candidates have talked about lowering property taxes and quite a few city council members have stated that the city can not afford to raise property taxes.

We have come to a point where property taxes must be talked about. The city is facing an $80million budget deficit and raising property taxes would be an easy and destructive way to help make up the difference. Since the last few years have not been kind to many citizens’ pocketbooks some of our local leaders know that voters will rebel if they think they have to give up more of their paychecks.

I am glad that property tax reduction and a refusal to raise property taxes are issues that are finally in the spotlight. The problem is that for at least the last four years there have been many voices warning about this day and it could have been avoided if the city had just chosen to become fiscally responsible during the last election in 2007.

Back in 2007 hardly anyone was talking about property taxes. Leaders did not want to be proactive and address this inevitable problem that drives people away from living in Baltimore. If you take a look at the issues I stressed during my 2007 campaign you will see that property taxes and selling city owned property were very important to me. It’s a shame that no candidate for citywide office touched on any of the fiscal subjects I brought up. Imagine if a leader would have adopted my goal of bringing down the property tax rate to under $2 per $100 of the assessed value of the property by the start of 2010? Had this simple and necessary plan been adopted in 2007 we could have easily attained my other goal of having an identical property tax rate to Baltimore County by 2018.

Baltimore’s property tax rate can still be lowered to close to Baltimore County’s rate in the near future, but it will be harder than it should have been because we will have a later start. We are also going to have to address major spending cuts in city government. I predict that this year’s spending cuts discussion will resemble the property tax discussion of 2007. We all know that spending cuts must be addressed but our leaders are willing to put it off until 2015 when we will be forced to deal with that issue. We need a brave leader with a plan who is not scared to talk about the inevitable. I am getting tired of saying “I told you so”.  We need leaders with sound business minds. In my next post I will finally address the not so sound fiscal ideas that I heard when I sat in on city council meetings earlier this month.

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