Votes at a glance: Board of Estimates approves contracts and settlements on March 5, 2025

The Board of Estimates conducted a series of formal actions on March 5, 2025. The items below were moved, seconded and approved on the record during the meeting.

Votes at a glance

• SB2510530 — Department of Finance: professional services agreement with PFM Group Consulting LLC for compensation analyses (total not specified in board presentation). Motion approved. City Budget Director Laura Larson said the contract will support a comprehensive fee update, labor negotiation analysis and ad-hoc financial work; board members discussed holding the contract centrally so its analysis can serve multiple city needs.

• SB2510358 — Department of Law: settlement and release in Harley et al v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore to resolve claims arising from recurring sewer backups at 1543 Northgate Road. Settlement amount: $204,400. Motion approved. Deputy Law Department counsel described repeated callouts and later capital repairs to a private lateral; DPW leaders described ongoing cleaning, CCTV and capital upsizing work tied to consent-decree remediation.

• SB2510503 — Mayor’s Office of Employment Development: professional services agreement with the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners to fund YouthWorks positions (three-year total approx. $324,769.50 noted on agenda; motion approved). Director Mackenzie Garvin said the contract targets Career & Technical Education students in early childhood and dental technician pathways and pays $15 per hour for up to 25 hours per week during the five-week YouthWorks window.

• SB2415094 — Bureau of Procurement: unauthorized procurement approval for Versaterm Public Safety US Inc. (previously Adashi) to support the Fire Department’s incident-management software for amounts accrued during a vendor transition. Motion approved. Fire officials said the operations unit will not continue use of the vendor software long term and will rely on other records management and reporting processes.

• SB2415005 — Bureau of Procurement: unauthorized procurement approval for event management software used by the Baltimore Convention Center (vendor and invoice period detailed in presentation). Motion approved. Deputy procurement and Convention Center staff said legacy software continued to be used while the new vendor remained out of Workday and the center is manually migrating decades of event data to a new platform.

• SB2510431 (BOPP item referenced on the agenda) — Bureau of Procurement: sole-source maintenance and repair contract with IMAX Incorporated for SCADA system support at water facilities (approx. $750,000 as listed on the nonroutine agenda). Motion approved. DPW said IMAX (vendor listed in record) currently maintains the SCADA installation and will assist while the utility transitions to a cloud-based control platform.

Procedural notes: motions to approve routine and nonroutine agenda items were made, seconded and adopted; several agenda withdrawals were announced by the clerk earlier in the meeting. Some procurement approvals were characterized as unauthorized procurements to cover vendor status or transition periods; staff said those were operationally necessary to maintain continuity of service.

Why it matters: the approvals formalize consultant work that affects labor and fee-setting, confirm procurement continuity for operations (SCADA, incident/event management), and resolve a costly homeowner claim tied to sewer backups.