This cycle of fraud against the poor in Baltimore is what has caused the third world poverty and unemployment and pushed people into crime and violence and then into jail. Rent Court keeps people in chaos by keeping them without homes and losing property over and again and this makes them less employable. The taxes, fees, and fines go to build global Johns Hopkins and a free haven for a bevvy of global corporate downtown businesses enriched with corporate fraud.
THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THIRD WORLD ECONOMIES LOOK LIKE AND ALL OF MARYLAND IS NOW INSTALLING THESE POLICIES AS QUALITY OF LIFE FALLS AND WEALTH INEQUITY GROWS.
It all tracks to the Maryland Assembly and Baltimore City politicians working to install public policy written by Johns Hopkins. How has the middle-class benefited from this dynamic? It's wealth is is taken in taxes, fees, and fines as well.
When I moved to Baltimore I was surprised to hear that city homeowners were responsible for their own sidewalk repairs. Most municipalities take care of side walks using property tax revenue. That is what property tax is for and Baltimore homeowners pay lots of property tax. Walk the city and you will see different patches of sidewalk outside each home because each home hires someone different to repair their sidewalks. Many communities sidewalks are simply left in disrepair. Then Baltimore City Hall requires homeowners to buy insurance for water main lines to their homes. All of the failures of Baltimore's water and road infrastructure is placing stress on aging water lines to homes and fresh water is pouring from huge pipes bursting and home lines failing. Baltimore's entire water infrastructure could have been upgraded including lines to houses but O'Malley as Mayor and Baltimore City Hall directed all city revenue to build the Johns Hopkins East Baltimore global corporate headquarters instead. Residents are caught with huge water bills from all of these failures, basements are flooded, cleaned, and flood again all from the failure of public policy by Maryland Assembly and Baltimore City Hall installing Johns Hopkins policies.
BALTIMORE HAS ENOUGH REVENUE TO TAKE CARE OF ALL THESE INFRASTRUCTURE PROBLEMS AND HOMEOWNERS PAY ENOUGH TAXES AND FEES TO HAVE IT DONE----THE MONEY IS SIMPLY LOST TO FRAUD AND MISAPPROPRIATION.
Baltimore Neighborhood Issued Controversy Sidewalk Repair Citations
March 6, 2012 6:32 PM BALTIMORE (WJZ)--
Residents in a Baltimore neighborhood are at war with City Hall. They’re angry over thousands of dollars in sidewalk repair citations.
Adam May discovers homeowners aren’t the biggest offenders. It’s actually the city.
Ronald Munk is furious with City Hall after inspectors said he needs to pay $650 to replace his section of sidewalk.
“If you’re gonna trip over it, you need to pick up your feet,” Munk said. “There’s a lot worse sidewalks.”
More than a dozen residents in the Lakeland neighborhood got citations.
Jim Breakwell says his wife, who uses a walker, has no problem with the slight bump on their sidewalk. He says the sidewalk is raised roughly half an inch.
Here is the mayor telling citizens to buy insurance to cover the costs of what the city should be paying through property tax revenue.
YOU MUST BUY INSURANCE AGAINST DAMAGE CAUSED BY INSTALLATION OF SMART METERS ----NO ONE WANTS.
Keep in mind that the city is paying for all of the water and waste infrastructure for downtown development----along with the corporate tax breaks and subsidies paid for from this revenue paid by city residents.
'City officials declined to provide a legal basis for why they believe homeowners could be stuck with bills if pipes break during a contractor's work'.
The $4,000 water bills the mayor speaks has been proven not to be homeowner water line leaks----over and over and over again. The city is over-billing for water and property taxes often by thousands of dollars and ignore homeowners when these over-billings occur. Homeowners hire people to prove there are no leaks and the city still demands the over-charge. This is how Baltimore homeowners are being pushed from their homes. It is of course the low-income homeowners who cannot afford to fight or pay all of this who are being taken all by fraud from Baltimore City Hall.
City asks home owners to buy insurance for water meter overhaul
By Luke Broadwater, The Baltimore Sun
Baltimore's spending panel approved a deal Wednesday with a Connecticut company to offer insurance to property owners whose pipes could break during a system-wide overhaul of water meters.
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake encouraged residents to buy HomeServe USA Corp.'s insurance, which — at less than $9 a month — she called "very affordable."
"If the problem is on the resident's property, it's their responsibility. How many people would be able to pay for that if they got hit with a $4,000 bill?" the mayor said.
HomeServe will offer insurance to property owners for $3.99 per month for water lines and $5.49 per month for sewer lines, or $8.49 for both. As a marketing promotion, water customers who sign up within the first year will be charged only $1 per month for their water lines that year. As part of the contract, the company will also provide $150,000 a year to Baltimore to help pay for repairs for low-income or senior residents unable to afford the insurance.
Thousands of Baltimore County residents also are served by the city water system. County officials will have the option of offering insurance to their residents, but will need to enter into a separate agreement with the vendor, said Kevin Harris, a spokesman for Rawlings-Blake.
City officials declined to provide a legal basis for why they believe homeowners could be stuck with bills if pipes break during a contractor's work.
Last year, Baltimore officials awarded an $83.5 million contract to overhaul the city's huge water-meter system — and warned residents that they could be liable for damage the work might cause on their properties unless they purchase insurance.
The city selected Itron Inc. of Washington state to install meters for a new wireless meter system that will serve 400,000 customers in Baltimore and Baltimore County, rejecting a competing bid from local firm Dynis LLC that was $101 million more.
Rawlings-Blake said the upgrade is part of an effort to end "outrageous" water bill mistakes that have infuriated customers. The replacement is expected to be completed in the city by 2016 and the county by 2017.
_______________________________________
Besides speed cameras that fraudulently give tickets of $60 to residents guilty of nothing Baltimore's mayor cut trash collection and privatized yet more of the city's water and waste services. Property taxes pay for water and waste infrastructure in most places----in Baltimore it pays for Johns Hopkins and its global corporation. All of these property taxes would be going to public schools in most municipalities around the country----but Maryland does not designate property tax for schools---it uses it to cover credit bond leverage for development subsidizing wealthy global corporations. Public schools crumbling and closing because of Baltimore City Hall public policy written by Baltimore Development Corporation.
Baltimore is so leveraged with debt and government coffers soaked with having to subsidize the simple existence of global corporations in the city that it is all set to be sent to bankruptcy in this coming bond market crash.
AND ALL OF THIS IS ILLEGAL. POLITICIANS CANNOT PLACE THE CITIZENS AND PUBLIC ASSETS IN HARMS WAY!
Look at this report in a national news journal---- Median income in Baltimore is around $40,000 and unemployment is 25-30%. Low-income workers may not pay income taxes but as we see they are soaked of wealth with a death from a hundred other taxes, fees, and fines. City residents pay more in income tax because Baltimore City is one of few counties that has a county tax.
You can see we have plenty of revenue coming to City Hall and it goes to downtown development.
US CENSUS BUREAU
Baltimore City
Median household income, 2009-2013 $41,385
3.05% tax rate for residents who live in Baltimore
Top 10 cities with the highest tax rates
Thomas C. Frohlich and Alexander E.M. Hess, 24/7 Wall St. 12:20 p.m. EST February 17, 2014
New federal report reviews property, sales, auto and income taxes for various income levels in largest city in each state.
4. Baltimore, Md.
• Taxes for family earning $25,000: $2,950 (16th lowest)
• Taxes for family earning $150,000: $24,747 (4th highest)
• Unemployment rate: 7.2%
Baltimore area residents are fairly well-off compared with most of the country — median household income was nearly $67,000 in 2012, among the nation's highest. Baltimore's property tax burden is especially high. Families of three earning $150,000 paid $13,772 in property taxes in 2012. Families earning $25,000 had no income tax burden, but those earning $150,000 paid more than 5% of their income in state and local income taxes alone, the sixth-highest percentage of any city reviewed.
____________________________________________
This gives insight into what is the most corrupt system in the nation. The tax policy is crazy and unconstitutional, the corruption is overt, and the targeted movement of revenue to corporations and recruiting new residents who do not stay because of the BANANA REPUBLIC political climate.
This all happens because Baltimore Development and Johns Hopkins dismantled Baltimore's public sector and all oversight and accountability so they could move billions of dollars in fraud to those at the top. The centralized power of the mayor who works for Hopkins takes avenues away from citizens to correct this mess.
IT REALLY IS EASY PEASY TO CHANGE----ENGAGE IN POLITICS AND RUN FOR OFFICE ----KNOW THE CANDIDATES FOR WHOM YOU VOTE AND MAKE SURE THEY ARE NOT CONNECTED TO THIS CRONY POLITICS THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY!
The idea that the city takes control of a tax system oversight that the state fell short is ridiculous. The system will be doubly-likely to be filled with fraud. There are so many tax credit schemes in Baltimore all supposedly for development that Baltimore created a special unit just for tax credits costing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. My organization is going to court demanding an end to all of this tax policy.
Look below to see that all of the procurement fraud was caused by a malfunctioning electronic procurement system---can't blame the Board of Estimates and Jack Young he says!
'And City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young introduced a resolution calling for an investigative hearing into CitiBuy, the city's electronic procurement system'
Council OKs city takeover of tax calculations
Administration moves to take responsibility, but some question city's ability to do the job
September 15, 2014|By Luke Broadwater | The Baltimore SunIf historic tax bills are wrong in the future, at least city property owners will know who to blame.
The City Council voted unanimously Monday to give Baltimore’s government authority to do the appraisals that determine the size of historic tax credits — essentially stripping state officials of the duty in response to errors that left some property owners with wildly inaccurate bills.
The plan, which is expected to get final approval next week, ends months of finger-pointing between state and city officials over who is to blame for the problems.
“If the city wants to take it all over, that’s great,” said City Councilman James B. Kraft, whose southeast district has dozens of historic properties. “We can have one group of people to praise if it works, and we can have one group of people to blame if it doesn’t work.”
The city’s historic tax credit program allows the full value of approved home renovations to go untaxed for 10 years. The program gives out thousands of dollars to those who renovate historic properties — and, the city says, spurred $560 million in renovations over the years. But it was dogged by inaccurate tax bills that city officials blamed on the state.
“While it would have been easy to ignore these problems and kick the can down the road for future administrations, fixing the problem now is the right thing to do,” Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said in a statement Monday.
“Clearly, what the state was doing wasn’t working,” said City Councilman Brandon Scott.
But as some on the City Council praised the administration’s acceptance of responsibility for the program, others questioned whether the city government is best equipped to do the appraisals.
“The typical taxpayer is left with many questions,” said economist Anirban Basu of Sage Policy Group, a consulting firm. “There’s no guarantee that the new set of assessors will do a more credible job than the current assessors.”
The Baltimore Sun has detailed problems with the historic tax credit system. In 2012, The Sun found, the city failed to collect more than $1.5 million in taxes because of historic tax credit errors on some apartment buildings and commercial properties. Last year, the paper reported, more than 300 city homeowners saw significant increases in their property tax bills after officials discovered that previous tax breaks were larger than they should have been.
Officials in the state Department of Assessments and Taxation have disputed that the problem was all their fault, but have said they support the change to have the city take over the appraisals.
This year’s city budget includes funding to increase the Billing Integrity Unit, which will grow from three to seven employees — including an appraiser, tax and revenue analysts and a data manager. The new positions, at a cost of $290,000, were created to enable the city appraisals as well as monitoring to better catch erroneous bills.
The move to take over the assessments of historic improvements, restorations, and rehabilitations is the city's latest step to try to remedy the errors. The city also has moved to an automated system to calculate the bills.
City Councilman Nick Mosby voted for the plan, but said implementation would be the real test.
“It’s great that we’re taking it over and managing it,” Mosby said. “But it’s critically important that we run it right.”
Kraft said he has been assured by William Voorhees, the city's director of revenue and taxation, that city appraisers will respond quickly to property owners — and appraise properties within days of a request. He said many people buying and selling properties need to know immediately what their tax credits will be.
“The question is, can the city’s assessors get out there quickly?” Kraft asked. “If they can do that, then this can work?”
Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke said she felt “comfortable” knowing that new finance director Henry Raymond would be overseeing the program.
City officials say the legislation needs final approval by Oct. 1 so they can carry out the changes in time for the next round of tax bills.
Officials have also announced that they will pay about $3 million to owners of historic properties whose tax bills in coming years will be higher than what government officials had told them to expect. Rawlings-Blake has appointed a three-member panel to distribute the funds.
Retired Baltimore Circuit Judge John M. Glynn, City Auditor Robert McCarty, and City Solicitor George Nilson will decide which owners will get the checks, which will cover portions of up to nine years of future tax bills. About 75 property owners submitted applications that could make them eligible to receive the checks, city officials said.
In other business, the council took up two additional financial matters. The body gave preliminary approval to offer up to $5,000 in tax credits to homeowners who move to new homes but choose to remain in the city. The Resident Retention Tax Credits are intended to help residents who lose their Homestead tax credits when they switch homes.
And City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young introduced a resolution calling for an investigative hearing into CitiBuy, the city's electronic procurement system, which helps in selecting more than $270 million in contractors a year.
“It is important to ensure that the taxpayers receive the best price available,” Young said in a statement. His resolution means city finance and purchasing officials will be called to appear before the council to answer questions about the system’s efficiency.
__________________________________________
The idea that Baltimore will see a lower property tax rate with all property taxes tied to credit bond leverage is fiction. Baltimore has the most corporations categorized as non-profits in the nation and if they are not paying property taxes and getting services free----
IT IS THE FAILURE TO CATEGORIZE CORPORATIONS AND MAKING THEM PAY TAXES THAT IS THE PROBLEM.
Below you see an excuse to charge for trash pickup for city residents which has always been part of property tax services.
WE ARE DOING THIS TO HOLD NON-PROFITS ACCOUNTABLE!
Mayor calls for trash pickup fee, 10 percent cut in city workforce
Rawlings-Blake wants longer work week for firefighters, city employees to contribute to pensions
February 11, 2013|By Luke Broadwater, The Baltimore Sun
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake called Monday for "bold reforms" to fix a looming financial shortfall, including requiring more city workers to contribute to their retirement fund, charging residents for trash collection, asking firefighters to work longer hours and cutting the city workforce by 10 percent over time.
In return, she said, the city could use the savings to raise employee salaries and cut property taxes by 22 percent — 50 cents per $100 of assessed value — over the next decade.
Delivering her annual State of the City address, the mayor did not offer specifics of her proposals, but said she would introduce legislation in coming weeks and months.
"This plan doesn't solve all our problems," Rawlings-Blake said. "No realistic plan ever does. But it will show with greater confidence that Baltimore, more than any other city in America, is taking responsibility and getting its own house in order."
"We cannot build the foundation of a growing city on the mud of a fiscal swamp," she said.
The speech was generally well-received by members of the City Council and a conservative think tank — who described Rawlings-Blake as a mayor unafraid to make tough choices — but some proposals were met with skepticism.
Her call for austerity measures came after her administration released a consultant's report last week that said Baltimore is facing a structural deficit of nearly $750 million over the next 10 years. It pointed to municipal pension and health care costs as the two biggest drivers of the projected shortfall.
The mayor said she wants to require current city employees to contribute some of their salaries to their pensions, while moving to a 401(k)-style retirement plan for new civilian hires. She also proposed giving new employees hired in the Police and Fire departments a "hybrid" retirement system.
Additionally, the mayor said she wants firefighters to work longer than their "outdated" 42-hour week and said she hopes to shrink the size of city government, without "major layoffs," by at least 10 percent over eight years.
Michael B. Campbell, president of the Baltimore fire officers union, said administration officials outlined their plan for the department in a briefing last week. He said they want to cut the equivalent of 300 positions while imposing longer hours and worse retirement benefits.
While his members would earn more for a longer week, they would earn less per hour, he said. "That's a pay cut," he said. "They're going to have a tough time recruiting."
City Councilman William H. Cole IV said he believes the council will set an example on the issue of pension reform. On Monday, he introduced a resolution that called on the city to shift elected officials' retirement plans from traditional pensions to 401(k)-style plans.
"It's clear to me that we as elected officials have to lead the way," he said.
Rawlings-Blake also said she aims to reduce city health insurance costs and find ways to collect more money from tax-exempt nonprofits — two major areas in which she believes city finances could improve. She said she wants to renegotiate a "payment in lieu of taxes" agreement with nonprofits, which all together occupy $4 billion worth of tax-exempt property.
She called for an "immediate health coverage eligibility audit" to ensure that "all dependent health coverage is legitimate." And she said she planned to charge a "user fee" for trash, recycling and sanitation. The mayor said the fee would help lower property taxes for all Baltimore homeowners.
Even as council members questioned some of Rawlings-Blake's proposals, most said they were pleased to see the mayor tackling the tough issues. For instance, City Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke took issue with some of the mayor's proposals, including shifting to a 401(k)-style retirement system and charging for trash collection. But she said she supports the effort to rein in long-term spending.
"I think she's a really good, young, forward-looking mayor," Clarke said. "She's doing the right thing. You can disagree on the details, but you have to congratulate the mayor on looking down the road and saying, from her own perspective, where we should be and how we should get there."
City Councilman James Kraft said he supported the move to charge a trash pickup fee as a way to get tax-exempt nonprofits to contribute to the city coffers.
"What's really important is that all of the folks that are exempt from property tax — it gets those people to begin to pay their fair share," Kraft said. "Right now you can't charge them the property tax, but you can charge them this sewer and user fee. ... There will be pushback, but if it's done right, it will give us a tool to cut the property taxes significantly."
But City Councilman Carl Stokes — who also called the speech "very good" — said it missed two key components in reforming city finances: more audits and fewer tax breaks for developers.
______________________________________
STOP ALLOWING BALTIMORE BE MADE A THIRD WORLD DEVELOPMENT PROJECT!
Johns Hopkins made Baltimore into an economic basket case over these few decades by literally making it third world-----no public government structure. In place of the government structure Hopkins installed itself under the guise of private non-profits and quasi-governmental organizations. This is exactly what US corporations and developing world funding does overseas----it builds these non-profits that control the developing nation and funnels tons of money to global corporations connected to the overseas development. Hopkins simply brought all this home to Baltimore and installed itself as quasi-government for life!
This is why Baltimore is so impoverished and citizens living in poverty. This model is what is now expanding across the nation and coming to your neck of the woods. It works in Baltimore because unemployment was allowed to remain so high so long that people just wanting jobs are forced to create this winners and losers environment in the city. No one is paying taxes because everything is non-profit. This is why taxes, fees, and fines kill Baltimore's residents!
NO ONE WINS EXCEPT THE PEOPLE AT THE TOP. IF YOU ARE BEING ENRICHED NOW YOU WILL LOSE IT LATER. STOP PLAYING THIS THIRD WORLD GAME CONTROLLED BY JOHNS HOPKINS!
The NGO's then privatize all that is public to a few people.Non-governmental organization From Wikipedia
A non-governmental organization (NGO) is an organization that is neither a part of a government nor a conventional for-profit business.
Usually set up by ordinary citizens, NGOs may be funded by governments, foundations, businesses, or private persons. Some avoid formal funding altogether and are run primarily by volunteers. NGOs are highly diverse groups of organizations engaged in a wide range of activities, and take different forms in different parts of the world. Some may have charitable status, while others may be registered for tax exemption based on recognition of social purposes. Others may be fronts for political, religious or other interest groups.
The number of NGOs in the United States is estimated at 1.5 million.[1] Russia has 277,000 NGOs.[2] India is estimated to have had around 2 million NGOs in 2009, just over one NGO per 600 Indians, and many times the number of primary schools and primary health centres in India.[3][4]
NGOs are difficult to define, and the term 'NGO' is rarely used consistently. As a result, there are many different classifications in use. The most common focus is on 'orientation' and 'level of operation'. An NGO's orientation refers to the type of activities it takes on. These activities might include human rights, environmental, or development work. An NGO's level of operation indicates the scale at which an organization works, such as local, regional, national or international.[5]
The term "non-governmental organization" was first coined in 1945, when the United Nations (UN) was created.[6] The UN, itself an inter-governmental organization, made it possible for certain approved specialized international non-state agencies--i.e., non-governmental organizations—to be awarded observer status at its assemblies and some of its meetings. Later the term became used more widely. Today, according to the UN, any kind of private organization that is independent from government control can be termed an "NGO", provided it is not-for-profit, non-criminal and not simply an opposition political party.
One characteristic these diverse organizations share is that their non-profit status means they are not hindered by short-term financial objectives. Accordingly, they are able to devote themselves to issues which occur across longer time horizons, such as climate change, malaria prevention or a global ban on landmines. Public surveys reveal that NGOs often enjoy a high degree of public trust, which can make them a useful - but not always sufficient - proxy for the concerns of society and stakeholders.[7]
THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THIRD WORLD ECONOMIES LOOK LIKE AND ALL OF MARYLAND IS NOW INSTALLING THESE POLICIES AS QUALITY OF LIFE FALLS AND WEALTH INEQUITY GROWS.
It all tracks to the Maryland Assembly and Baltimore City politicians working to install public policy written by Johns Hopkins. How has the middle-class benefited from this dynamic? It's wealth is is taken in taxes, fees, and fines as well.
When I moved to Baltimore I was surprised to hear that city homeowners were responsible for their own sidewalk repairs. Most municipalities take care of side walks using property tax revenue. That is what property tax is for and Baltimore homeowners pay lots of property tax. Walk the city and you will see different patches of sidewalk outside each home because each home hires someone different to repair their sidewalks. Many communities sidewalks are simply left in disrepair. Then Baltimore City Hall requires homeowners to buy insurance for water main lines to their homes. All of the failures of Baltimore's water and road infrastructure is placing stress on aging water lines to homes and fresh water is pouring from huge pipes bursting and home lines failing. Baltimore's entire water infrastructure could have been upgraded including lines to houses but O'Malley as Mayor and Baltimore City Hall directed all city revenue to build the Johns Hopkins East Baltimore global corporate headquarters instead. Residents are caught with huge water bills from all of these failures, basements are flooded, cleaned, and flood again all from the failure of public policy by Maryland Assembly and Baltimore City Hall installing Johns Hopkins policies.
BALTIMORE HAS ENOUGH REVENUE TO TAKE CARE OF ALL THESE INFRASTRUCTURE PROBLEMS AND HOMEOWNERS PAY ENOUGH TAXES AND FEES TO HAVE IT DONE----THE MONEY IS SIMPLY LOST TO FRAUD AND MISAPPROPRIATION.
Baltimore Neighborhood Issued Controversy Sidewalk Repair Citations
March 6, 2012 6:32 PM BALTIMORE (WJZ)--
Residents in a Baltimore neighborhood are at war with City Hall. They’re angry over thousands of dollars in sidewalk repair citations.
Adam May discovers homeowners aren’t the biggest offenders. It’s actually the city.
Ronald Munk is furious with City Hall after inspectors said he needs to pay $650 to replace his section of sidewalk.
“If you’re gonna trip over it, you need to pick up your feet,” Munk said. “There’s a lot worse sidewalks.”
More than a dozen residents in the Lakeland neighborhood got citations.
Jim Breakwell says his wife, who uses a walker, has no problem with the slight bump on their sidewalk. He says the sidewalk is raised roughly half an inch.
Here is the mayor telling citizens to buy insurance to cover the costs of what the city should be paying through property tax revenue.
YOU MUST BUY INSURANCE AGAINST DAMAGE CAUSED BY INSTALLATION OF SMART METERS ----NO ONE WANTS.
Keep in mind that the city is paying for all of the water and waste infrastructure for downtown development----along with the corporate tax breaks and subsidies paid for from this revenue paid by city residents.
'City officials declined to provide a legal basis for why they believe homeowners could be stuck with bills if pipes break during a contractor's work'.
The $4,000 water bills the mayor speaks has been proven not to be homeowner water line leaks----over and over and over again. The city is over-billing for water and property taxes often by thousands of dollars and ignore homeowners when these over-billings occur. Homeowners hire people to prove there are no leaks and the city still demands the over-charge. This is how Baltimore homeowners are being pushed from their homes. It is of course the low-income homeowners who cannot afford to fight or pay all of this who are being taken all by fraud from Baltimore City Hall.
City asks home owners to buy insurance for water meter overhaul
By Luke Broadwater, The Baltimore Sun
Baltimore's spending panel approved a deal Wednesday with a Connecticut company to offer insurance to property owners whose pipes could break during a system-wide overhaul of water meters.
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake encouraged residents to buy HomeServe USA Corp.'s insurance, which — at less than $9 a month — she called "very affordable."
"If the problem is on the resident's property, it's their responsibility. How many people would be able to pay for that if they got hit with a $4,000 bill?" the mayor said.
HomeServe will offer insurance to property owners for $3.99 per month for water lines and $5.49 per month for sewer lines, or $8.49 for both. As a marketing promotion, water customers who sign up within the first year will be charged only $1 per month for their water lines that year. As part of the contract, the company will also provide $150,000 a year to Baltimore to help pay for repairs for low-income or senior residents unable to afford the insurance.
Thousands of Baltimore County residents also are served by the city water system. County officials will have the option of offering insurance to their residents, but will need to enter into a separate agreement with the vendor, said Kevin Harris, a spokesman for Rawlings-Blake.
City officials declined to provide a legal basis for why they believe homeowners could be stuck with bills if pipes break during a contractor's work.
Last year, Baltimore officials awarded an $83.5 million contract to overhaul the city's huge water-meter system — and warned residents that they could be liable for damage the work might cause on their properties unless they purchase insurance.
The city selected Itron Inc. of Washington state to install meters for a new wireless meter system that will serve 400,000 customers in Baltimore and Baltimore County, rejecting a competing bid from local firm Dynis LLC that was $101 million more.
Rawlings-Blake said the upgrade is part of an effort to end "outrageous" water bill mistakes that have infuriated customers. The replacement is expected to be completed in the city by 2016 and the county by 2017.
_______________________________________
Besides speed cameras that fraudulently give tickets of $60 to residents guilty of nothing Baltimore's mayor cut trash collection and privatized yet more of the city's water and waste services. Property taxes pay for water and waste infrastructure in most places----in Baltimore it pays for Johns Hopkins and its global corporation. All of these property taxes would be going to public schools in most municipalities around the country----but Maryland does not designate property tax for schools---it uses it to cover credit bond leverage for development subsidizing wealthy global corporations. Public schools crumbling and closing because of Baltimore City Hall public policy written by Baltimore Development Corporation.
Baltimore is so leveraged with debt and government coffers soaked with having to subsidize the simple existence of global corporations in the city that it is all set to be sent to bankruptcy in this coming bond market crash.
AND ALL OF THIS IS ILLEGAL. POLITICIANS CANNOT PLACE THE CITIZENS AND PUBLIC ASSETS IN HARMS WAY!
Look at this report in a national news journal---- Median income in Baltimore is around $40,000 and unemployment is 25-30%. Low-income workers may not pay income taxes but as we see they are soaked of wealth with a death from a hundred other taxes, fees, and fines. City residents pay more in income tax because Baltimore City is one of few counties that has a county tax.
You can see we have plenty of revenue coming to City Hall and it goes to downtown development.
US CENSUS BUREAU
Baltimore City
Median household income, 2009-2013 $41,385
3.05% tax rate for residents who live in Baltimore
Top 10 cities with the highest tax rates
Thomas C. Frohlich and Alexander E.M. Hess, 24/7 Wall St. 12:20 p.m. EST February 17, 2014
New federal report reviews property, sales, auto and income taxes for various income levels in largest city in each state.
4. Baltimore, Md.
• Taxes for family earning $25,000: $2,950 (16th lowest)
• Taxes for family earning $150,000: $24,747 (4th highest)
• Unemployment rate: 7.2%
Baltimore area residents are fairly well-off compared with most of the country — median household income was nearly $67,000 in 2012, among the nation's highest. Baltimore's property tax burden is especially high. Families of three earning $150,000 paid $13,772 in property taxes in 2012. Families earning $25,000 had no income tax burden, but those earning $150,000 paid more than 5% of their income in state and local income taxes alone, the sixth-highest percentage of any city reviewed.
____________________________________________
This gives insight into what is the most corrupt system in the nation. The tax policy is crazy and unconstitutional, the corruption is overt, and the targeted movement of revenue to corporations and recruiting new residents who do not stay because of the BANANA REPUBLIC political climate.
This all happens because Baltimore Development and Johns Hopkins dismantled Baltimore's public sector and all oversight and accountability so they could move billions of dollars in fraud to those at the top. The centralized power of the mayor who works for Hopkins takes avenues away from citizens to correct this mess.
IT REALLY IS EASY PEASY TO CHANGE----ENGAGE IN POLITICS AND RUN FOR OFFICE ----KNOW THE CANDIDATES FOR WHOM YOU VOTE AND MAKE SURE THEY ARE NOT CONNECTED TO THIS CRONY POLITICS THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY!
The idea that the city takes control of a tax system oversight that the state fell short is ridiculous. The system will be doubly-likely to be filled with fraud. There are so many tax credit schemes in Baltimore all supposedly for development that Baltimore created a special unit just for tax credits costing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. My organization is going to court demanding an end to all of this tax policy.
Look below to see that all of the procurement fraud was caused by a malfunctioning electronic procurement system---can't blame the Board of Estimates and Jack Young he says!
'And City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young introduced a resolution calling for an investigative hearing into CitiBuy, the city's electronic procurement system'
Council OKs city takeover of tax calculations
Administration moves to take responsibility, but some question city's ability to do the job
September 15, 2014|By Luke Broadwater | The Baltimore SunIf historic tax bills are wrong in the future, at least city property owners will know who to blame.
The City Council voted unanimously Monday to give Baltimore’s government authority to do the appraisals that determine the size of historic tax credits — essentially stripping state officials of the duty in response to errors that left some property owners with wildly inaccurate bills.
The plan, which is expected to get final approval next week, ends months of finger-pointing between state and city officials over who is to blame for the problems.
“If the city wants to take it all over, that’s great,” said City Councilman James B. Kraft, whose southeast district has dozens of historic properties. “We can have one group of people to praise if it works, and we can have one group of people to blame if it doesn’t work.”
The city’s historic tax credit program allows the full value of approved home renovations to go untaxed for 10 years. The program gives out thousands of dollars to those who renovate historic properties — and, the city says, spurred $560 million in renovations over the years. But it was dogged by inaccurate tax bills that city officials blamed on the state.
“While it would have been easy to ignore these problems and kick the can down the road for future administrations, fixing the problem now is the right thing to do,” Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said in a statement Monday.
“Clearly, what the state was doing wasn’t working,” said City Councilman Brandon Scott.
But as some on the City Council praised the administration’s acceptance of responsibility for the program, others questioned whether the city government is best equipped to do the appraisals.
“The typical taxpayer is left with many questions,” said economist Anirban Basu of Sage Policy Group, a consulting firm. “There’s no guarantee that the new set of assessors will do a more credible job than the current assessors.”
The Baltimore Sun has detailed problems with the historic tax credit system. In 2012, The Sun found, the city failed to collect more than $1.5 million in taxes because of historic tax credit errors on some apartment buildings and commercial properties. Last year, the paper reported, more than 300 city homeowners saw significant increases in their property tax bills after officials discovered that previous tax breaks were larger than they should have been.
Officials in the state Department of Assessments and Taxation have disputed that the problem was all their fault, but have said they support the change to have the city take over the appraisals.
This year’s city budget includes funding to increase the Billing Integrity Unit, which will grow from three to seven employees — including an appraiser, tax and revenue analysts and a data manager. The new positions, at a cost of $290,000, were created to enable the city appraisals as well as monitoring to better catch erroneous bills.
The move to take over the assessments of historic improvements, restorations, and rehabilitations is the city's latest step to try to remedy the errors. The city also has moved to an automated system to calculate the bills.
City Councilman Nick Mosby voted for the plan, but said implementation would be the real test.
“It’s great that we’re taking it over and managing it,” Mosby said. “But it’s critically important that we run it right.”
Kraft said he has been assured by William Voorhees, the city's director of revenue and taxation, that city appraisers will respond quickly to property owners — and appraise properties within days of a request. He said many people buying and selling properties need to know immediately what their tax credits will be.
“The question is, can the city’s assessors get out there quickly?” Kraft asked. “If they can do that, then this can work?”
Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke said she felt “comfortable” knowing that new finance director Henry Raymond would be overseeing the program.
City officials say the legislation needs final approval by Oct. 1 so they can carry out the changes in time for the next round of tax bills.
Officials have also announced that they will pay about $3 million to owners of historic properties whose tax bills in coming years will be higher than what government officials had told them to expect. Rawlings-Blake has appointed a three-member panel to distribute the funds.
Retired Baltimore Circuit Judge John M. Glynn, City Auditor Robert McCarty, and City Solicitor George Nilson will decide which owners will get the checks, which will cover portions of up to nine years of future tax bills. About 75 property owners submitted applications that could make them eligible to receive the checks, city officials said.
In other business, the council took up two additional financial matters. The body gave preliminary approval to offer up to $5,000 in tax credits to homeowners who move to new homes but choose to remain in the city. The Resident Retention Tax Credits are intended to help residents who lose their Homestead tax credits when they switch homes.
And City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young introduced a resolution calling for an investigative hearing into CitiBuy, the city's electronic procurement system, which helps in selecting more than $270 million in contractors a year.
“It is important to ensure that the taxpayers receive the best price available,” Young said in a statement. His resolution means city finance and purchasing officials will be called to appear before the council to answer questions about the system’s efficiency.
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The idea that Baltimore will see a lower property tax rate with all property taxes tied to credit bond leverage is fiction. Baltimore has the most corporations categorized as non-profits in the nation and if they are not paying property taxes and getting services free----
IT IS THE FAILURE TO CATEGORIZE CORPORATIONS AND MAKING THEM PAY TAXES THAT IS THE PROBLEM.
Below you see an excuse to charge for trash pickup for city residents which has always been part of property tax services.
WE ARE DOING THIS TO HOLD NON-PROFITS ACCOUNTABLE!
Mayor calls for trash pickup fee, 10 percent cut in city workforce
Rawlings-Blake wants longer work week for firefighters, city employees to contribute to pensions
February 11, 2013|By Luke Broadwater, The Baltimore Sun
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake called Monday for "bold reforms" to fix a looming financial shortfall, including requiring more city workers to contribute to their retirement fund, charging residents for trash collection, asking firefighters to work longer hours and cutting the city workforce by 10 percent over time.
In return, she said, the city could use the savings to raise employee salaries and cut property taxes by 22 percent — 50 cents per $100 of assessed value — over the next decade.
Delivering her annual State of the City address, the mayor did not offer specifics of her proposals, but said she would introduce legislation in coming weeks and months.
"This plan doesn't solve all our problems," Rawlings-Blake said. "No realistic plan ever does. But it will show with greater confidence that Baltimore, more than any other city in America, is taking responsibility and getting its own house in order."
"We cannot build the foundation of a growing city on the mud of a fiscal swamp," she said.
The speech was generally well-received by members of the City Council and a conservative think tank — who described Rawlings-Blake as a mayor unafraid to make tough choices — but some proposals were met with skepticism.
Her call for austerity measures came after her administration released a consultant's report last week that said Baltimore is facing a structural deficit of nearly $750 million over the next 10 years. It pointed to municipal pension and health care costs as the two biggest drivers of the projected shortfall.
The mayor said she wants to require current city employees to contribute some of their salaries to their pensions, while moving to a 401(k)-style retirement plan for new civilian hires. She also proposed giving new employees hired in the Police and Fire departments a "hybrid" retirement system.
Additionally, the mayor said she wants firefighters to work longer than their "outdated" 42-hour week and said she hopes to shrink the size of city government, without "major layoffs," by at least 10 percent over eight years.
Michael B. Campbell, president of the Baltimore fire officers union, said administration officials outlined their plan for the department in a briefing last week. He said they want to cut the equivalent of 300 positions while imposing longer hours and worse retirement benefits.
While his members would earn more for a longer week, they would earn less per hour, he said. "That's a pay cut," he said. "They're going to have a tough time recruiting."
City Councilman William H. Cole IV said he believes the council will set an example on the issue of pension reform. On Monday, he introduced a resolution that called on the city to shift elected officials' retirement plans from traditional pensions to 401(k)-style plans.
"It's clear to me that we as elected officials have to lead the way," he said.
Rawlings-Blake also said she aims to reduce city health insurance costs and find ways to collect more money from tax-exempt nonprofits — two major areas in which she believes city finances could improve. She said she wants to renegotiate a "payment in lieu of taxes" agreement with nonprofits, which all together occupy $4 billion worth of tax-exempt property.
She called for an "immediate health coverage eligibility audit" to ensure that "all dependent health coverage is legitimate." And she said she planned to charge a "user fee" for trash, recycling and sanitation. The mayor said the fee would help lower property taxes for all Baltimore homeowners.
Even as council members questioned some of Rawlings-Blake's proposals, most said they were pleased to see the mayor tackling the tough issues. For instance, City Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke took issue with some of the mayor's proposals, including shifting to a 401(k)-style retirement system and charging for trash collection. But she said she supports the effort to rein in long-term spending.
"I think she's a really good, young, forward-looking mayor," Clarke said. "She's doing the right thing. You can disagree on the details, but you have to congratulate the mayor on looking down the road and saying, from her own perspective, where we should be and how we should get there."
City Councilman James Kraft said he supported the move to charge a trash pickup fee as a way to get tax-exempt nonprofits to contribute to the city coffers.
"What's really important is that all of the folks that are exempt from property tax — it gets those people to begin to pay their fair share," Kraft said. "Right now you can't charge them the property tax, but you can charge them this sewer and user fee. ... There will be pushback, but if it's done right, it will give us a tool to cut the property taxes significantly."
But City Councilman Carl Stokes — who also called the speech "very good" — said it missed two key components in reforming city finances: more audits and fewer tax breaks for developers.
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STOP ALLOWING BALTIMORE BE MADE A THIRD WORLD DEVELOPMENT PROJECT!
Johns Hopkins made Baltimore into an economic basket case over these few decades by literally making it third world-----no public government structure. In place of the government structure Hopkins installed itself under the guise of private non-profits and quasi-governmental organizations. This is exactly what US corporations and developing world funding does overseas----it builds these non-profits that control the developing nation and funnels tons of money to global corporations connected to the overseas development. Hopkins simply brought all this home to Baltimore and installed itself as quasi-government for life!
This is why Baltimore is so impoverished and citizens living in poverty. This model is what is now expanding across the nation and coming to your neck of the woods. It works in Baltimore because unemployment was allowed to remain so high so long that people just wanting jobs are forced to create this winners and losers environment in the city. No one is paying taxes because everything is non-profit. This is why taxes, fees, and fines kill Baltimore's residents!
NO ONE WINS EXCEPT THE PEOPLE AT THE TOP. IF YOU ARE BEING ENRICHED NOW YOU WILL LOSE IT LATER. STOP PLAYING THIS THIRD WORLD GAME CONTROLLED BY JOHNS HOPKINS!
The NGO's then privatize all that is public to a few people.Non-governmental organization From Wikipedia
A non-governmental organization (NGO) is an organization that is neither a part of a government nor a conventional for-profit business.
Usually set up by ordinary citizens, NGOs may be funded by governments, foundations, businesses, or private persons. Some avoid formal funding altogether and are run primarily by volunteers. NGOs are highly diverse groups of organizations engaged in a wide range of activities, and take different forms in different parts of the world. Some may have charitable status, while others may be registered for tax exemption based on recognition of social purposes. Others may be fronts for political, religious or other interest groups.
The number of NGOs in the United States is estimated at 1.5 million.[1] Russia has 277,000 NGOs.[2] India is estimated to have had around 2 million NGOs in 2009, just over one NGO per 600 Indians, and many times the number of primary schools and primary health centres in India.[3][4]
NGOs are difficult to define, and the term 'NGO' is rarely used consistently. As a result, there are many different classifications in use. The most common focus is on 'orientation' and 'level of operation'. An NGO's orientation refers to the type of activities it takes on. These activities might include human rights, environmental, or development work. An NGO's level of operation indicates the scale at which an organization works, such as local, regional, national or international.[5]
The term "non-governmental organization" was first coined in 1945, when the United Nations (UN) was created.[6] The UN, itself an inter-governmental organization, made it possible for certain approved specialized international non-state agencies--i.e., non-governmental organizations—to be awarded observer status at its assemblies and some of its meetings. Later the term became used more widely. Today, according to the UN, any kind of private organization that is independent from government control can be termed an "NGO", provided it is not-for-profit, non-criminal and not simply an opposition political party.
One characteristic these diverse organizations share is that their non-profit status means they are not hindered by short-term financial objectives. Accordingly, they are able to devote themselves to issues which occur across longer time horizons, such as climate change, malaria prevention or a global ban on landmines. Public surveys reveal that NGOs often enjoy a high degree of public trust, which can make them a useful - but not always sufficient - proxy for the concerns of society and stakeholders.[7]
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