Annapolis mayor gets flak from City Council for changes to discretionary spending

A small slice of the Annapolis city budget general fund is assigned for one-time uses. In the past, that’s included traffic studies, support for after-school programs, funding for a food pantry, and facility improvements around the city.

In recent years, the city’s previous mayor, Gavin Buckley, only appropriated some of the money reserved for one-time expenditures in his proposed budgets, leaving the City Council with some funds they could direct themselves, without necessitating a cut elsewhere in the budget.

This year, though, Mayor Jared Littmann has appropriated nearly 100% of the $1.8 million assigned for one-time use, leaving just $24 unappropriated.

Alderman Rob Savidge, the City Council’s longest-serving member, said he thinks the mayor is effectively limiting how much discretionary spending that council members could spend within their wards.

“That is taking away an ability the council has had for a number of budgets now, to be able to address our needs in a collaborative manner,” Savidge said Wednesday.

“It’s a departure from what I was hoping was going to be a more collaborative administration,” he said.

The mayor’s office did not make anyone available for an interview.

Alderman Harry Huntley, who chairs the City Council’s finance committee, agreed that the mayor is asserting more power in the budget process, relative to the council.

But overall, he said, he supports that budgeting strategy. In previous budgets under Buckley, he said, the bar for council members to appropriate one-time use dollars was too low.

“The reason he’s doing that is so the money doesn’t feel like it’s free, because it’s not,” Huntley said.

Huntley said the difference boils down to the prior practice of asking, “How do you want to spend this money” vs. Littman’s approach of, “Here’s how I want to spend the money, do you have a better idea?”

“It sets a bar you have to clear,” Huntley said.

Alderwoman Karma O’Neill, who’s also on the finance committee, said she did not interpret the mayor’s proposed budget as “anything malicious” or as the mayor trying to cut the council out of the spending process.

The council can — and will — propose changes to the budget during the normal amendment process, O’Neill said.

O’Neill said she did have some ideas for contract positions she would have offered as amendments if there had been an unappropriated pot of one-time use money.

Savidge, in a news release, detailed a package of amendments to the mayor’s proposed budget for one-time spending, including removing $200,000 for “police specialty cleanings” and cutting a $103,450 “pilot program” for a training administrator in the fire department.

His amendments would redirect some of those funds toward projects including $35,000 for GPS dispatch software for snow removal vehicles, $50,000 for professional development in the city manager’s office, and $25,000 for commemorative plaques recognizing the “full roster” of elected aldermen and women who have served Annapolis.

The City Council is expected to discuss around 100 proposed budget amendments at a work session Thursday afternoon. They will then vote on those amendments — and the $233 million budget — June 1.