City Budget and Fiscal Policies
Since taking office Mayor Rawlings Blake has faced massive multi-million dollar budget deficits, resulting in tough cuts to the city's budget. The administration balanced the budget through cuts to numerous agencies such as Parks and Recreation while increasing funding for the Police Department and maintaining the City's token financial commitment to the Baltimore City Public School System. In particular, the mayor's cuts to Parks and Recreation resulted in the August 4, 2012 closing of 4 public recreation and Police Athletic League centers with as many as 10 centers facing closing if a private operator could not be found. As a result of recent cuts, in 2012 Baltimore closed 24 public recreation centers shedding from 55 in 2011 to 31 by 2013. The mayor favors support of centralizing and expanding just 16 centers and privatizing as many as 6 centers to be run by "private companies".
Rawlings-Blake credits her reforms to the city pension for saving $64 million yearly, saving the city from an even worse fiscal crisis. The mayor has made extensive cuts to city social welfare programs, with cuts to funding for prisoner reentry programs and the elimination of the city's offices of Community Development and Community Relations. In 2012, to close the budget deficit, the mayor closed 3 fire stations two of them serving Harlem Park/Sandtown-Winchester and Berea/Clifton are among Baltimore's poorest communities.
In 2013, Rawlings-Blake commissioned an independent study showing that the city of Baltimore could go bankrupt within the next decade. The study showed that the city's total shortfall would reach $2 billion over 10 years.
Read more about this topic: Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Mayor of Baltimore
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