Baltimore police budget to be increased through city funds

Baltimore police want to hire more civilians, release more police officers for patrol duty and get their officers out of their cars so they can interact with the public on foot.

In his first budget hearing since being named head of the department nearly a year ago, Commissioner Richard Worley reiterated many of the priorities he has laid out since then. He wants to improve community policing, an area where the department has fallen behind. He wants to get out of the city’s federal settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice in the next two years. And he wants to accomplish as much as he can with the officers he has at his disposal.

Baltimore Police, like other agencies across the country, suffer from vacancies. The fiscal year 2025 budget proposal responds by hiring more non-police employees across the agency: It calls for 58 new civilian positions, to be funded by eliminating long-vacant sworn officer positions. It is hoped this will result in up to $1 million in overtime savings.

The agency’s budget hearing before the Baltimore City Council on Wednesday focused less on violence in the city, giving council members more time to examine a wide range of issues.

Several praised the agency for the progress it has made in recent years, including its role in the continued reduction of shootings in Baltimore.

Others raised tough questions about how the department is dealing with the officer “indifference” identified in a follow-up operations report last year as a contributing factor in the Brooklyn Homes shooting, the number of tickets Baltimore police issue for minor offenses and how it works with police oversight bodies such as Baltimore’s Administrative Charging Committee.

The Baltimore Police Department’s $593 million budget request calls for an increase in city funding from the general fund of about $15 million over last fiscal year’s allocation. However, the overall budget request is slightly lower than last year due to significant cuts in federal, state and special grants.

It requests $540 million from the General Fund, for a total budget of $593 million. The approved budget for fiscal year 2024 called for approximately $525 million from the General Fund in its total allocation of $594 million.

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Investigation into police role in Brooklyn Homes shooting

Councilwoman Odette Ramos had numerous questions about the actions taken by Baltimore police following the devastating mass shooting last July following the Brooklyn Homes community’s annual Brooklyn Day street festival. The shooting, which broke out after midnight, left two young people dead and 28 others injured.

Months after the release of a report finding that “indifference” among officials had played a role, she wanted to know: What has changed since then?

Police officials responded that they would renew their community policing efforts, with all officers expected to engage with residents, not just those tasked with community engagement as neighborhood coordination officers, or NCOs. The idea, said Deputy Chief Sarah Ritter, who oversees the effort, is to give those NCOs time to build deeper relationships and help more with community issues.

Ramos later urged the department to “eradicate” any indifference in the department. Worley said he agreed, but didn’t know if that could ever be achieved “100%.”

“I don’t think we’ll ever get rid of the indifference of some people,” Worley once said.

“Then they shouldn’t be police officers,” Ramos replied.

Later, Deputy Chief Brian Nadeau, who heads the department’s compliance and integrity offices, said an internal investigation had been referred to the city’s Administrative Charging Committee. In other words, the police investigation into officers’ conduct before and during the shooting will now be reviewed by the group, which is tasked with determining any policy violations and recommending disciplinary action. Nadeau did not share any of the department’s findings in that investigation.

Separately, he rejected the notion that officials’ “indifference” played a role in the handling of Brooklyn Day, describing that characterization as “limited review.”

“It’s like going to a crime scene, seeing someone and making a quick assessment of what’s happening,” Nadeau said. “But once you’ve gathered all the facts and done an investigation, you may find that other things happened.”

Officials still issue few tickets for minor offenses

Of the 81 subpoenas issued by Baltimore police since District Attorney Ivan Bates created a subpoena registry last year, 58 have been denied.

Worley said he would not “sugarcoat” the department’s low numbers and called the process “more difficult” than he or Bates had expected.

The lack of citations to BPD officers drew criticism from Bates’ ally Sheila Dixon, a Democratic mayoral candidate who was recently defeated in the Democratic primary by Mayor Brandon Scott. On Wednesday, Councilman Zeke Cohen, who won the primary for council president, took up the issue, saying he was not happy with the city’s record on so-called “quality of life” crimes such as drugs and loitering.

Since Dixon’s criticism, police chiefs have tried to help officers write tickets. Police now have access to an app that helps with writing tickets, officials said, and a member of the district attorney’s office has been attending attendance meetings.

A major hurdle, Worley said, is the need to issue a warning before issuing a subpoena. He said the department is asking the Justice Department and the settlement monitoring team to clarify that the warning does not have to be from the same day or night.

City Councillor Kristerfer Burnett highlighted another aspect related to the fines: the police do not heed the warnings.

Burnett called on the agency to begin collecting this data and improve documentation of race and ethnicity in these interactions.

An end to the settlement decision?

Worley reiterated Wednesday that his goal is to get the agency out of its police settlement process by the end of his three-year contract.

“It would be a year until June 8, so I hope to be finished in two years,” Worley said.

He predicted the biggest hurdle would be staffing, but added that the department would “do its best.”

Earlier this year, the department achieved compliance with the first two sections of its settlement, with many sections still outstanding. It must be in full compliance with the first two sections for one year before it can exit federal oversight in those areas.

Worley also reversed earlier statements that community policing was a priority, in part because the department had fallen short of its goals under the settlement decree. When he took office, he stripped county commissioners of their duties, in part to give them more time to focus on the community policing of patrol officers.

He has also been a strong advocate for foot patrols. A recent audit, he said, found that officers spend about 15 percent of their time on foot patrol, or about an hour per shift.

“I’m not naive enough to think that some aren’t just sitting there doing nothing (in their cars), but we’ve reduced that significantly,” Worley said.

Cooperation with civil regulatory authorities

In response to questions from the council, Nadeau said he was “very aware” of the concerns of the group of civilians tasked with investigating police misconduct and recommending disciplinary action that police were releasing files too close to deadlines.

However, he said staffing was a problem for the department.

The expectation in the settlement agreement that police should complete misconduct investigations within 90 days is “impossible” with current staffing levels, Nadeau said. However, investigators are trying to prioritize cases that go to the Administrative Charging Committee and whose deadlines are approaching.

The committee reviews cases involving members of the public. All disciplinary proceedings must be completed within one year and one day of the complaint, according to state law.

“Are they right to complain? Of course they are. They should get the cases much sooner,” Nadeau said of the Administrative Charging Committee. “Nothing would make me happier than to get them much sooner, but we need a lot more people to do that.”

Committee members told The Baltimore Sun that delays in conducting investigations have forced police to cram hours of bodycam footage into weekends or schedule emergency meetings. They also warned that this could lead to a less thorough investigation and less time to request more information or investigate.

Baltimore authorities then said they were working to streamline the transfer and provide access to investigative materials before the investigation was completed.

Cohen urged Nadeau to speak with committee members and “work through” the issue.

“We have to do this right to provide fairness to the public,” he said. “When I hear from board members on a fairly regular basis that the timelines are not meeting their expectations, I think that’s an issue we need to work on together.”