Thread by @rahulastrohl

I have some new followers since last weekend and I want to highlight the greatest barrier—in my experience—to real lasting change in Baltimore City: the Board of Estimates. Andre Davis sits on the board, as does soon-to-resign public works director Rudy Chow.

https://twitter.com/bmoregabe/status/1210270417966911489

(Before I continue, I need to highlight that I’d know none of this without working w @BmoreHousingRT @unitedworkers and the exhaustive research of @cmatthewhill of the @PublJusticeCntr)

The Board of Estimates controls all the spending in the city, both the capital budget (investments in big projects like hotels & stadiums, and smaller ones like apartment buildings) and the operations budget (regular dept spending like schools & roads etc)

5 people sit on the board:

Comptroller Joan Pratt (being challenged this April)

Council Prez Brandon Scott (vacating seat to run for mayor)

Mayor Jack Young (being challenged this April)

Mayor-appointed city solicitor & director of public works (both resigning)

So three of the five votes—i.e. the majority needed for all decisions—are either the mayor or appointed by the mayor. So basically the mayor is the only person whose opinion matters when it comes to the budget

The BoE meets every Wednesday at 9a (I’m guessing they took yesterday off). They release their agenda, usually more than 100 pages and often above 150, on Monday. In order to submit public comment, you must do so in person in writing by noon on Tuesday.

Not only that, you must identify the agenda item and why specifically you take issue with that agenda item so they can reject your comment if they feel it’s not pertinent.

If you’re 5 mins late to the meeting, it’s probably over. They just read out the items they abstain from, vote on the items they disagree on, and rubber stamp everything else. 150-plus items and the meeting’s usually over in 5 minutes.

Again, this is EVERYTHING the city spends money on. Budget surpluses, payouts to grantees, fiscal year budget proposals from the city departments, EVERYTHING.

Now let’s talk about the budget process a little. Did you know that all the city departments have likely already submitted their budgets to the Board of Estimates for FY21? (7/1/20 - 6/30/21)

They had meetings before thanksgiving and usually appear before the BoE in December. Unless you’re downloading 100-plus page PDFs every Monday and studying them by noon Tuesday, you wouldn’t know.

The next time the budgets will be available for public comment are at Taxpayer Night in the spring. By then the BoE has approved it, the Planning Commission (Jan, no public comment) has approved it, and council only has the ability to cut money—not add nor move

There’s some good news. People don’t often show up for the BoE meetings. So if you find something in the PDF that you want to kick up a fuss about, you’ll be a story. (Make sure you alert reporters about it so they show up.)

The other bit of good news I already addressed—the two appointed seats are soon to be vacated and the three elected seats are either open or hotly contested this April. So we can make our displeasure with this known.

Pressure the candidates for mayor. Pressure the candidates for comptroller. Pressure the candidates for council president. Pressure the city council candidates. Make them take a stance on reforming or abolishing the BoE.

You have until April 7 to register to vote or change your party for the April 28 primary. I don’t care for parties, but the reality is that the Democratic primary is effectively the election in Baltimore City.

(There are some interesting non-dem candidates, but they have a lot of work to do and a lot of money to raise to be competitive in November. But I definitely recommend holding them to a position on the BoE as well.)

Here is the full list of everyone who has declared so far: elections.maryland.gov/elections/2020…

The filing deadline is mid-Jan so keep refreshing. Then pressure all candidates—but ESPECIALLY the ones for comptroller, mayor, and council prez—to reform or abolish the Board of Estimates.