Local government is ‘Byzantine’ enough; it doesn’t need $700K in new council jobs
One of the first things that Brandon Scott should do, now that he’s been sworn in as Baltimore’s next mayor, is to persuade the Board of Estimates (BOE) to reverse its decision to add nine new positions to the staff of the incoming council president, Nick Mosby.
The oddly timed, improvident decision by the BOE will make governing Baltimore harder than it already is.
The increase from 27 to 36 positions on the council president’s already-bloated staff was rammed through the BOE by lame duck Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young during his final months in office without fully describing the reasons why it was necessary
In my opinion, the real reason for the expansion is that it will allow Mr. Mosby to extend his tentacles deeper into city government, creating the absolute last thing that the city needs: a beefed-up Council President’s Office acting as a power center that competes with the mayor for political influence and control over city government. City government is Byzantine enough.
Incompetence and corruption flourish in the city in part because of the preoccupation of city officials with petty politics. Those petty politics also make it easier for a governor to ignore the city, particularly one who already is inclined to do so. The effectiveness of a municipal government generally is inversely proportional to the number of political cliques and the amount of infighting among those cliques. Time wasted on political posturing and maneuvering is time not spent on the daunting problems facing the city. In other words, this move will make a bad situation worse.
Mr. Mosby stated the new jobs would be modeled on staff in the Maryland Department of Legislative Services in Annapolis. That would seem to put his office in competition with the city’s Department of Legislative Reference, tasked by the city charter to independently “investigate and collect all available information relating to any matter which is the subject of proposed legislation” by the city or state.
Ironically, the department, formed in 1906, is one of the few institutions of city government widely admired around the state. A 2018 op-ed written by former Maryland Attorney Stephen Sachs and prominent Baltimore lawyer Shale Stiller described the department as “a century old bastion of professional, bipartisan scholarship.”
Mr. Mosby would not be the first city politician to put a higher priority on politics than on “professional, bipartisan scholarship.”
City voters approved a charter amendment creating the new position of city administrator to oversee the day-to-day operations of city government. It is a worthwhile measure borrowed from large Maryland counties that have far fewer challenges on their plates than Baltimore.
The livability of the city, if not its survival, depends on improving the quality of city services, not on improving the technical quality of city legislation. The city desperately needs proficient managers capable of restoring city agencies to some semblance of competent functioning.
A better use for the $700,000 needed to expand Mr. Mosby’s office would be to give the city administrator the tools that he or she needs to get city services back on track.
Also, let’s clarify what the 33% increase in the size of the council president’s staff is not about. It is not about reconfiguring the balance of power in city government between the executive and legislative branches. Adding nine patronage positions to Mr. Mosby’s office increases his power, not the collective power of the City Council. There is a big difference.
The power to hire and fire people is a time-honored way at all levels of government to gain and enforce personal and political loyalty. Personal and political loyalty is the currency used to acquire political power. And political power is what this is all about.
Finally, a word about the price tag. Given the financial crunch facing the city, how can Mr. Mosby justify adding $700,000 to his annual budget without a detailed explanation on why the six “policy and financial analysts” already on his 27-person staff are insufficient to review legislation, if that indeed is his goal?
Mayor Scott should nip this problem in the bud. Better for the city to endure Mr. Mosby’s anger at having his plans thwarted now than deal with the consequences of his power play for the remainder of his term and beyond.