Baltimore council presses administration on falling vacancies but steady overtime, seeks fewer year‑end supplementals

At a Baltimore City Council Budget and Appropriations Committee hearing, council members pressed city finance and public‑safety officials for clearer explanations of why overtime costs have remained high even as long‑term vacancies have come down.

The committee, chaired by Councilwoman Danielle McCrae, framed the session around LO26‑0048, a follow‑up to last year’s oversight into vacancies and overtime. Council President Z. Cohen said the council had previously documented more than 500 long‑term vacancies that he called “phantom positions,” and noted the administration’s figures showing overtime across agencies reporting to the administration rose to about $139 million in calendar year 2024. “We called those phantom positions because they existed on paper but were unlikely to be filled by real people,” Cohen said.

Why it matters: the council repeatedly linked persistent overtime and large year‑end supplemental appropriations to weakened budget integrity. Officials said some supplementals are unavoidable (for example, unbudgeted snow events), but members asked the administration to tighten quarterly projections and reduce retroactive requests.

Deputy Director of Finance Bob Seny outlined trends and policy tools the administration is using: citywide general‑fund vacancy rates peaked near 20% in FY24 and had declined to about 15% as of January FY26; the administration has abolished 113 general‑fund positions in the FY27 preliminary budget, freeing roughly $9.2 million for reinvestment; and targeted salary investments have been negotiated with multiple unions to improve recruitment and retention. Seny emphasized that overtime should be examined in the context of total personnel budgets and legal/operational constraints, noting that some overtime is driven by federal FLSA rules and contractual provisions.

Police and fire leaders described how staffing shortfalls and contract rules translate to overtime costs. A department representative told the committee the police department was projecting to be about $13.3 million over its overtime budget this year and remains roughly 20% understaffed in patrol with about 411 vacancies; the department said it has reduced overtime hours compared with prior years but still faces contractual costs tied to cancelled days off, special events and penalty pay. Fire Department testimony emphasized that vacation backfills, line‑of‑duty sick/injury costs and FLSA‑mandated overtime are major drivers; the fire briefing showed year‑to‑date non‑line‑of‑duty sick costs of about $7.7 million and line‑of‑duty sick/injury down to about $5.2 million so far.

Committee members pushed for specific, auditable numbers. Council requests included an itemized BPD overtime breakdown (vacancy‑driven overtime vs. non‑vacancy drivers such as court coverage and special events), a staffing‑by‑agency spreadsheet over the last three years showing positions abolished vs. positions filled, and the administration’s vacancy and recruitment spreadsheets by agency.

Administration and agency proposals and next steps: officials cited the city’s 10‑year financial plan and pointed to structural measures intended to reduce future supplementals and overtime pressure: modernizing leave policies, pursuing pay‑scale reforms for public‑safety classifications, funding “trainee” pins (to avoid double‑paying trainees and overtime), pursuing full cost recovery for large special events and studying a solid‑waste enterprise fund (to be paired with a property‑tax offset, if adopted). Finance said the administration will return with its Q3 projections at the committee’s next quarterly briefing and expects to request any necessary supplementals after providing those updated figures.

What the committee did: no formal policy was adopted at the hearing. Members recorded a series of committee requests for additional data from finance, police and fire and signaled continued oversight in upcoming budget hearings.