Baltimore City Council Pay Raise-Time for Electoral Reform? Headline from Tuesday’s Sun: “Silence from City Council translates into pay raises”. “Without discussion, a vote, or mention on its official agenda”, by not voting to deny itself a pay raise, the Baltimore City Council voted itself, and the next Mayor, a pay raise.

You can’t make this stuff up.

So next fall’s each newly elected member of the city council will get a $9,000 pay raise that will take salaries from $48,000 to $57,000. The City Council President will see her salary go up $18,000 to a whopping $98,000 a year, and the next Mayor will see her or his salary go up $23,000 to $148,000.

Ok, maybe the Mayor should get a raise – it’s a tough job. But, for the Council and Council President, it is hard to justify such a large increase. Isn’t this supposed to be a part-time position? In a city where murders are once again on the rise and students continue to badly under perform, instead of spending $189,000 on a pay raise, the city could have used the money to hire four more cops, or send 15 kids to private schools.

Unhappy Baltimore voters, if there are any (the Sun reported that only one came to a hearing to protest the raises), could decide to vote out of office those who allowed the pay raise to go through. The reality will be that most of the city council members will be re-elected. So you can depend on more of the same from a council that is unlikely to change much after this fall’s election.

In a previous column, I wrote that it would be good for the city to have someone with a business background and record of achievement in another field enter the race to bring a fresh perspective to solving the city’s problems.

Our electoral system makes it too tough though. So maybe it is time for some reform. Baltimore is a one party town. The democratic primary determines the winner and the general election is a formality. Turnout in Baltimore City elections is abysmally low – less than a third of eligible voters decide for the rest of us. This virtually guarantees that incumbents get re-elected, and reinforces the feeling that nothing really changes. Maybe the problem isn’t voter apathy but that voters feel disenfranchised.

There are ways to reform our electoral process so that voters can feel more engaged. One is to make the “primary” election non-partisan, include independents, and have the general election be a run-off between the two highest vote getters. Another is to have an open general election with instant runoff voting. A third would have voters vote for a party; seats in the council would be apportioned proportional to the vote that each party receives. This system is used widely in other countries and allows for more voices to be included in the political process.

Whatever the outcome, let’s start with a debate on how we can reinvigorate participation and attract new people and fresh ideas.

Labels: Baltimore City, pay, politics

  8:59 AM •  0 Comments • Links to this post

Time For A Gas Tax Increase in Maryland There’s a lot of talk around Annapolis these days about the structural deficit. This is one of those ‘deju vu’ moments: haven’t we heard all this before?

Most of us don’t have a clue about what this really means, or the details of government taxing and spending. Unfortunately, many of our legislators don’t either. But here is the simple primer: our government is costing more than we can afford, or we need to do more and can’t afford it. Something’s gotta give, and it’s usually the taxpayers.

Talk of deficits, structural or otherwise, quickly shifts to how to raise more money to pay for them. Now comes the question of choices that need to be made.

The debate has already started about which taxes to raise, or, to use the euphemism of public policy types, how to ‘modernize’ the state’s tax system. The Governor is rightly cautious about staking out a position before he has all the facts. Broad changes to tax policy will have an impact on the state’s economy, often in ways that can’t be anticipated entirely.

Nevertheless, there is one tax that the legislature and governor should not wait to increase, and that is the gas tax. The gas tax is the best user tax there is. It is simple to understand: those who drive, pay. If there is one thing that we should all be able to agree on it is that our state’s transportation system needs drastic improvement. Roads need to be maintained. Maryland is growing and the simple fact is that we are going to need more and wider highways. And all agree there isn’t enough money to do these things.

It is also a time to start making investments in public transportation. Revenue from gas taxes is one reason why other countries are able to pay for modern and efficient public transportation systems. With the exception of the DC metro, the region’s public transport is only slightly better than a third world country. Baltimore needs a Red Line connecting the east and west sides of the city. The region needs a high-speed rail connection that ties our growing population centers together.

We can also affect the environment and national policy. We shouldn’t kid ourselves that Maryland alone can make a difference, but we can at least set an example for that the federal government should follow. Increase prices of gasoline may reduce auto use, and reduced auto use will lower polluting carbon emissions.

Reduced driving also reduces demand for oil and will drive down world oil prices and the revenue that oil producing countries like Iran depend on to pay for their nuclear ambitions. The collapse of the Soviet Union was as much due to the price of oil going to $15 a barrel as anything else.

Senate President Mike Miller wants to increase the gas tax by $.12. Seems like good public policy to me.

Labels: Annapolis, flush tax, Maryland, oil

  11:30 AM •  1 Comments • Links to this post

Taking Responsibility at Walter Reed I am not sure why it took a series of articles in the Washington Post to expose the shameful treatment of outpatient soldiers at Walter Reed Army Hospital. After all, the hospital lies only a few short miles from the White House, Pentagon and Capitol Hill.

But lets be glad the Post did since apparently no one else was going to. So this got me to thinking about the concept of “taking responsibility”.

As a nation, we supposedly had learned from the Vietnam war when soldiers returned home and were ignored, or worse, excoriated. Remember the movie Born On The 4th of July ?

This time was going to be different.

The new mantra has been “support our troops”. We heard this even as they went off to a war that was started on faulty and fabricated intelligence.

The politicians made sure we knew that they “supported our troops” even as they sent them off to war without the body armor and armored up humvees that would have saved countless lives and injuries.

We may feel like we “support our troops” but don’t ask the soldiers at Walter Reed and other Army hospitals.

The soldiers hear us saying that we support our troops, but what they see and experience is neglect.

The current outrage over Walter Reed from official Washington is justified, but it has to ring a little hollow for the soldiers and their families who have had a lonely fight with the bureaucracy for the past three years.

It is fair for them to ask, “where has everybody been” ?

Now we are treated to the spectacle of Generals “taking responsibility” and politicians, from the President to Congress, vowing to get to the bottom of this and fix it.

Let’s hope that they finally do.

But all this has made me wonder about “taking responsibility”. Taking responsibility should mean doing your job as you are expected to do it. There used to be consequences for not doing your job. Now apparently all you have to do is “take responsibility”.

It’s as if saying those magical words somehow absolves those responsible from being accountable for their actions. When you have to explain that you acted irresponsibly, isn’t it too late to “take responsibility”?

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Labels: politics, Responsibility, Walter Reed

  3:11 PM •  0 Comments • Links to this post