Baltimore hearing finds long-term vacancies and rising overtime straining city budgets

Baltimore City Council’s Committee of the Whole heard testimony May 22 on growing overtime costs and thousands of vacant positions across city agencies, with council members and the administration warning the two problems are linked and could force late-year supplemental budget requests.

The discussion matters because the council and administration must finalize the fiscal 2026 budget in coming weeks. Council members said budgeting for positions that remain unfilled inflates appropriations on paper while agencies then reallocate those dollars to overtime, contractors or other expenses without prior council approval.

Council President (name not specified) opened the hearing and summarized the council’s analysis, saying the city has been “budgeting for hundreds of positions that have been vacant for at least 18 months” and calling those “phantom positions” because “they exist on paper but are apparently unlikely to be filled by real people.” Laura Larson, the city’s budget director, told the committee the administration’s Workday-based dataset shows general fund overtime hours rose between calendar years 2023 and 2024 and that a small number of agencies account for the vast majority of overtime.

Larson said the dataset shows “general fund overtime was up by about 15.9%,” and she identified six agencies that together account for roughly 95% of the city’s overtime utilization; the police, fire and public works…