US Taxpayers Foot $2 Billion Bill for 30,000 Public Employees in Baltimore

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Heritage Foundation

American taxpayers have paid for nearly $2 billion in federal aid to fund 30,000 public employees in Baltimore at local and federal levels, an audit shows.

Baltimore reportedly has 13,522 employees with a combined payroll that exceeds $821 million annually. The mayor’s office paid $7 million in 2018 for the salaries of 111 employees and $1 million for public relations fees, according to an investigation  conducted by auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.

“We found the city drowning in taxpayer dollars,” Open the Books CEO Adam Andrzejewski wrote in an editorial published Wednesday in Forbes.

Baltimore’s schools pay another 10,770 employees with a combined payroll of $619.3 million—$79.1 million spent outside the classroom, $11.4 million spent on psychologists, $16.4 million for social workers, $7.4 million for counselors, $2.7 million for bus drivers, and $41.2 million for principals and assistant principals, according to the watchdog group.

“Based on our audit, one fact seems clear,” Andrzejewski wrote. “If more money for public employees was the answer, Baltimore’s challenges would have been solved long ago.”

Federal workers in Baltimore amounted to 6,472 employees who earned $521.4 million in 2018.A total of $1.1 billion in federal grants and direct payments went to Baltimore city agencies, nonprofit organizations, corporations, and colleges from fiscal year 2015 to fiscal year 2018.