Baltimore, MD - This morning, Baltimore City's Board of Estimates met for the first time in 2020.

The Board of Estimates welcomed City Solicitor Jim Shea. 

Abstentions

Comptroller Bill Henry abstained on Item 2, page 49,  Mayor’s Office of Homeless Services/Provider Agreement with Youth Empowered Society, Inc.

“I am abstaining from acting on this item because the Maryland Philanthropy Network is also a party to the agreement, and the Comptroller’s Chief of Staff formerly served as President of the Maryland Philanthropy Network.”

Council President Nick Mosby abstained on Item 1, page 47, Retroactive Travel Approval/Reimbursement for the Office of the State’s Attorney.

“I am abstaining from voting on this reimbursement approval because my spouse directly and indirectly supervises the employee seeking reimbursement in her elected capacity as the State’s Attorney for Baltimore City.”

Mayor Brandon M. Scott, Acting DPW Director Matt Garbark and Acting City Solicitor Jim Shea did not have any abstentions.

Non-routine items

• p. 30-31 Law Department, Settlement Agreement and Release Eric Jones v. Joshua Jordan, Russell Tonks, et al.
• p. 64 #7 Itron, Department of Public Works, Department of Public Works, B50002877, Advanced Metering Infrastructure and Water Meter System Installation

Itron provides maintenance and software support of Baltimore City’s Advanced Metering Infrastructure and Baltimore County’s Automated Meter Reading - the systems that manage our water meter readings.

Comptroller Henry raised issues around outsourcing positions that could be City jobs. Julie Day, on behalf of the Department of Public Works, shared that Itron has the needed and relevant expertise for their duties. DPW committed to review the current staffing model with an eye towards hiring City workers, instead of using Itron and report back to the Board of Estimates in 60 days.

Council President Nick Mosby asked the Board of Estimates to hold the contract over to next meeting.

• p. 68  #4 Bureau of Procurement, B5006094, Group #1 SUV’s Medium and Heavy Duty Vehicles A Protest was received from Terex Utilities, Inc.
• p. 69  #5 Bureau of Procurement, B5006095, Group #2 SUV’s Medium and Heavy Duty Vehicles A Protest was received from Terex Utilities, Inc.

The contracts were awarded.

Other Updates

The Board of Estimates will be replacing the verbatim transcript with formal written minutes which would simply consist of: 1) the items considered, 2) the action BOE took on those items, and 3) each person’s vote on those items, per Md. Code, Gen. Prov., § 3-306(b). 

The Comptroller’s office will still provide written minutes of each BOE meeting but will be discontinuing the practice of using a verbatim transcript of each meeting as the minutes. If anyone is looking for exactly what was said during a given meeting, a copy of the video and audio recordings of Board meetings will still be available on the City’s public access television website and the Comptroller’s Office will maintain links on the BOE website to the archived recordings for each meeting. The Comptroller’s Office will also maintain the official copy of the video and audio recording of each BOE meeting on appropriate storage media, which will remain in the physical custody of the Comptroller’s Office for at least five years after the date of the Board meeting.

Recordings of each BOE meeting can also be found on Charm TV’s website and Youtube channel.