Speak out at Baltimore City Board of Estimates Taxpayer's Night!

On Wednesday, April 23, the Baltimore City Board of Estimates is holding its annual Taxpayer's Night - the year's first public hearing on next year's City budget. How is the City spending your money? Is the City investing enough in clean water, clean air, healthy communities, and Zero Waste? Speak out at Taxpayer's Night to share your budget priorities!

Five people make up the Board of Estimates: Mayor Scott, Comptroller Henry, Council President Cohen, Director of Public Works Zaied, and City Solicitor Thompson. Their consideration and public hearing of Mayor Scott's proposed Preliminary Budget is an important checkpoint and opportunity for public feedback before the complete budget is introduced to the City Council in May. Sign up here to let us know you can testify at this hybrid hearing - in person at City Hall, or virtually via WebEx!

Many of the local issues we care about at Clean Water Action - keeping sewage out of people's homes and our streets and streams, reducing and diverting waste and transitioning away from trash incineration, building equitable transit systems, developing renewable energy, ensuring environmental justice - are shaped by how local, state, and federal governments raise and allocate our shared money. Our budgets show our values - what are the values the Baltimore City budget will show?

• We need to fully fund the recycling, composting, and construction/demolition materials management infrastructure called for in the Less Waste Better Baltimore Plan and the 10-Year Solid Waste Management Plan to build healthy alternatives to incineration and landfilling.
• We need to stop paying over $2 million per year to the BRESCO trash incinerator to burn just our yard waste, and collect yard waste separately for composting instead.
• We need to fully fund the staffing levels, pay scales, and facility and equipment investments to protect solid waste workers.
• We need to make sure businesses hauling large amounts of waste to the City landfill are paying their fair share.
• We need to fully fund DPW's Sewage Onsite Support program to provide emergency cleanup assistance to all households facing sewer backups from City infrastructure - and Mayor Scott needs to stop disputing MDE & EPA's order to do so.
• We need to invest in community priorities for environmental justice for clean air, clean water, and healthy communities.

Speak out at Taxpayer's Night for these priorities and more! Sign up here, and we'll follow up with how to make sure you get signed up to testify in person or virtually, and how we can support you to testify.