Baltimore Citizens Propose New Ballot Initiative Taxing Eds and Meds

Here is part of the text from a proposed City of Baltimore ballot initiative:

Ballot Question

The petition is for the purpose of amending the Baltimore City Charter to add Section 20 to Article I, establishing a continuing, non-lapsing Community Wealth Building Fund to be used exclusively to provide broadly defined projects and programs related to expanding community ownership such as worker owned co-operative businesses, community owned land trusts, agriculture, investment funds, financial institutions and utilities.  Revenue for the Fund will be non-lapsing and permanent through a mandatory annual appropriation in the Ordinance of Estimates of an amount equal to at least $0.06 on every $100 of assessed or assessable value of all property in the City of Baltimore or its equivalent in payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) contributions by medical and educational nonprofits. The Charter amendment will not mandate any new tax or tax increase, and would allow the City to determine the source of funds provided that the mandatory amount is complied with.

The fund shall not be used to replace existing City support for community wealth building activities and may not be used to support projects controlled by a medical or educational  anchor institution subject to a PILOT.  The Petition authorizes and directs oversight, governance, and administration of the Fund by a 15-member Commission appointed by the Mayor (or the City Council President if the Mayor fails to make timely appointments) to represent various constituencies with relevant expertise.  The commission shall make recommendations to the City regarding the negotiation of future PILOT agreements, and shall use the fund to address structural racism and historic discrimination.

The proposal will need 10,000 signatures to get on the 2024 ballot.  Here are brief media comments:

Johns Hopkins University, the University of Maryland Medical Center and 13 other nonprofit organizations owning billions of dollars in Baltimore City property may have to pay taxes on their land for the first time if a newly proposed ballot measure makes it into law.  A handful of unions and advocacy groups are pushing for a Community Wealth Building Fund that could bring in as much as $120 million annually from universities and hospitals in the city limits.  “Part of this measure is about community wealth building, how do we also make sure that our anchor institutions, our ‘eds’ and meds are playing their part in being good neighbors and good employers,” said Lorianne Arikat, the senior policy analyst at 1199 United Healthcare Workers. “This campaign is really about wealth redistribution. And one way we want to fund this community wealth building fund is by looking at institutions that are currently property tax exempt.”  The proposal will need to get 10,000 signatures to make it on the ballot and then be approved by a majority of voters during the 2024 election.  Currently, the nonprofit organizations do not pay any property taxes, but do pay a total of $6 million a year into a fund for the city called the PILOT agreement. That agreement is set to expire in 2026.

If history is any guide, Baltimore voters will approve the proposal for inclusion on the ballot in 2024, according to another report.

Under the PILOT agreement established in 2016, the Johns Hopkins University, the University of Maryland Medical Center and more than a dozen other nonprofit institutions together contribute $6 million a year to city coffers. The agreement was established in recognition of those institutions’ reliance on city services, but critics have argued for years that the arrangement was a bad deal for the city given how much it is forgoing in property tax revenues.  Collectively, those institutions own over $5 billion worth of property in Baltimore, according to a 2019 city estimate, holdings that would contribute $120 million to the city’s finances each year if they were taxed.

darryll k. jones