“Based on Fiscal 2025 1st Quarter projections, the City is projecting an overall $14.4 million deficit,” Mayor Brandon Scott’s office said in an emailed statement to The Baltimore Sun on Wednesday, referring to the period between July 1 and Sept. 30, 2024.
“We will be presenting the results of our 2nd Quarter projections to the City Council-Budget and Appropriations Committee in the coming weeks.”
The $14.4 million deficit comes after Baltimore had a $10 million revenue surplus, which was wiped away by $25.4 million in spending.
The Baltimore City Council reshuffled nearly $68 million this week to balance the budget retroactively.
City Council President Zeke Cohen and Councilman Mark Parker declined to comment on the appropriations they voted to approve Monday.
Enacted with Mayor Scott’s approval, the changes were spurred by 11 total bills the council considered last month. Ten of the bills, totaled a combined $56,516,660, while the final bill authorized a $11,346,666 transfer of existing unspent funds across the agencies during fiscal 2024 — which ran from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024.
Last October, the council authorized a $53.85 million supplementary appropriation to the city’s fiscal 2025 budget — a move city leaders hailed as a “windfall” at the time. While not directly related to the council’s most recent action, Monday’s appropriations exceeded the amount of this unexpected surplus by more than $2.65 million, essentially wiping it out.
According to Baltimore Budget Director Laura Larsen, the appropriations approved by the council were largely driven by staffing shortages within various city agencies. Nearly half of the total came from the Baltimore City Fire Department (BCFD), which received $33.36 million to fund “overtime due to sworn vacancies and unbudgeted EMS contractual services” during fiscal 2024.
“Staffing shortages within EMS services are driving considerable overtime because we are re-deploying staff from our fire suppression service over to EMS,” Larsen told The Baltimore Sun last month. “We then not only have to backfill the vacant shift on the EMS schedule, but then we also have the overtime expenditures that were accrued for EMS services.”
BCFD staffing shortages have forced employees to work considerable overtime hours and put the department 10% over its $333 million budget.
Such high demand for overtime led to David Lunsford, a BCFD paramedic hired in 2003, becoming the city’s highest-paid employee in fiscal 2024. Lunsford took home $358,586 despite his $113,158 salary due to overtime, making considerably more than the mayor and other high-profile city politicians.
The remaining appropriations bills passed Monday freed up millions for other city agencies that exceeded their fiscal 2024 budgets, including:
•$6.97 million for Recreation and Parks
•$5.98 million for Department of Public Works
•$5.25 million for Health Department
•$4.23 million for Department of Finance
•$3.28 million for Baltimore Police Department
•$1.51 million for Law Department
•$1.42 million for Board of Elections
•$1.04 million for Department of Transportation
•$250,323 for Liquor License Board
The loss of surplus funds has also proven contentious on the state level, prompting Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and former Gov. Larry Hogan to spar over the issue.
Moore’s proposed fiscal year 2026 budget insists his administration is not to blame for Maryland’s $3 billion budget deficit, but Hogan has pointed out the state was in a much stronger position when he left office two years ago. In January, Hogan claimed his administration left Moore with “$5.5 billion in financial reserves” — comprised of $3 billion in the state’s rainy day fund and a structural surplus of $2.5 billion.
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