A proposed change to Baltimore's charter that would make it easier for city officials to spend taxpayer money - but that would reduce public oversight on hundreds of contracts each year - advanced in the City Council yesterday despite criticism from one member who said the legislation cuts the public out of the process.
On a 3-1 vote, the council's Judiciary and Legislative Investigations committee approved a proposed amendment to the city charter - which is akin to a local constitution - proposed by Mayor Sheila Dixon's administration. The bill reduces public notice requirements for certain contracts and gives the mayor and council more control to determine which projects must be bid.
Supporters of the legislation said the process the city uses to purchase goods and services is outdated - noting that many of the requirements have not been updated since the 1980s. If approved by the council, the changes would go before voters for a referendum in November.
City Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke - the only member to vote against the bill - said the practical effect of the legislation is to remove the public from the city's procurement process.
"And I'm against doing that because it's their money," Clarke said. "We've had plenty of instances in which a small amount of money has caused a big amount of grief because of the mismanagement of it."
Currently, the charter allows a city contract between $5,000 and $25,000 to be informally bid and approved by the five-member Board of Estimates - which places the item on a public agenda. To change the dollar threshold, voters must approve an amendment to the charter.
Under the proposal, the mayor could introduce a bill to change the thresholds - for example, raising the $5,000 threshold to $30,000. If the City Council approved that bill and the mayor signed it, the new threshold would become law without a voter referendum. Administration officials argue that gives the council more power, because it could set the thresholds itself.
"All this does at this time, it simply gives the City Council the authority to set them," the city's finance director, Edward J. Gallagher, told members of the council. "You represent the voters. You know the business of government and I think you would be an asset to the taxpayer in setting such limits because you are closest to them."
The council, though, already has a vote on such changes under the current system because, in almost all cases, proposed charter amendments must be approved by the council.
Baltimore's charter calls for a formal bidding process on contracts of more than $25,000. That threshold may already be adjusted by the City Council and mayor - without a referendum. Contracts between $5,000 and $25,000 are generally handled more informally. Certain requirements, such as public advertising, do not apply.
On the June 27 Board of Estimates agenda, for example, the city was permitted to informally purchase dress hats for the city Fire Department for $20,000. It also bought a Chevrolet Cobalt for $14,160 for the Public Works Department.
The proposed legislation would also change advertising requirements for certain contracts. Currently, the city must advertise for companies to bid on city work over $25,000 - an announcement that typically comes in the form of newspaper advertisements (often in The Sun).
The proposal would cut from two to one the number of times the city would be required to advertise such contracts. Gallagher said newspaper advertising is expensive - a cost to taxpayers - and said the requirement can be handled more cheaply on the Internet, which City Hall is already doing.
But the proposed charter amendment does not require the city to use the Internet in place of newspaper advertising. It only reduces the newspaper requirement. Explaining that discrepancy in a June 19 memo provided to The Sun, Gallagher wrote: "Even though the city eventually plans to put all bids, both formal and informal on the web, we don't think technology use should be a charter requirement, per se."
The council appears to have all but killed a second charter amendment introduced by the administration that would have allowed the council to approve supplemental - or, above budget - spending with a simple majority, eight of the 15 members, rather than a three-quarters majority, or 12 members.
Mayors have typically found it easy to get a simple majority of the council, but have sometimes struggled to reach the higher threshold.
Like the General Assembly, the council has little control over the regular budget - but it can threaten to hold up surplus spending as a negotiating tool with the administration. Historically, requiring a three-quarters majority has given the council more power to negotiate.
"It's not being heard," City Councilman and Judiciary Committee Chairman James B. Kraft said of the administration's bill. "We're not taking that power away from the City Council. We have few powers and we have the ability to control few things and we're not going to take that away."
In order to get on the general election ballot this year, the council must approve the legislation and the administration must send it to the Board of Elections by Aug. 20, according to the election calendar. Dixon's administration introduced both bills at the June 11 council meeting. A final vote is expected on the contract measure Aug. 13.
Dixon administration officials have argued the legislation has nothing to do with a scandal Dixon was embroiled in last year as City Council president. An e-mail obtained by The Sun at the time showed a staff member advised a company with ties to Dixon to keep its bills under the $5,000 threshold to avoid Board of Estimates approval - the same threshold that Dixon, as mayor, would have more power to adjust under the legislation.
The proposals also come about a month after The Sun documented how the city Fire Department established an off-the-books account to purchase $250,000 worth of fire equipment without getting required approvals from city finance officials, including the Board of Estimates. That practice, which finance officials have denounced, took place for several years, including before Dixon became mayor.
Voting for the proposed charter amendment were Kraft, Council Vice President Robert W. Curran and Vernon E. Crider. City Councilman and mayoral candidate Keiffer J. Mitchell Jr. was absent.
Wayne R. Frazier, president of the Maryland-Washington Minority Contractors Association, which helps minority members win pieces of public contracts, said he supports the bill because it will force small businesses to get Internet savvy in order to win contracts.
"We have to have the ability to change with the times," he said. "We feel more comfortable in facing ... the City Council, our representatives, in the decision to raise or lower the threshold levels than we do voters."
john.fritze@baltsun.com