Perched atop one of Baltimore’s trademark street benches, Mayor Brandon Scott delivered his annual State of the City address Tuesday, pledging tax relief for city residents and improvements to longstanding struggles like paving city streets.

Delivered from an auditorium at Baltimore Center Stage, Scott, a Democrat in his second term as mayor, gave the speech in the style of a theater performance, navigating the stage in front of stylized images of Baltimore and oversized text.

City residents, including youths, the mother of a gun violence victim and a young union apprentice, periodically joined Scott on the stage to offer testimony about their interactions with the administration.

As he has in years past, Scott highlighted his efforts to reduce violence and combat the city’s blighted homes. The mayor also used the speech, the sixth of his tenure, to announce several new initiatives, including some that were a nod to resident concerns and another that touched upon his roots as a student athlete.

Tax relief

In his second term, Scott has taken modest steps to address the city’s property tax rate which is the highest of any jurisdiction in the state. Earlier this year, he rolled out a series of adjustments to tax credits that he said will effectively reduce the tax rate for more Baltimore homeowners.

On Tuesday, Scott offered a new plan that would assist homeowners who are behind on their property taxes. The pilot program would waive tax debt for homeowners at least 65 years old who make less than $73,000 a year. To be eligible, residents have to have owned their home for at least 10 years.

“As Baltimore continues to grow, we have to do everything we can to protect the folks who built our city,” Scott said.

As a nod to the city’s renters, who make up about half of Baltimore’s population, the mayor said he also planned to once again fund a security deposit assistance program, spearheaded by Council Vice President Sharon Green Middleton, that was offered during the pandemic.

Hitting the pavement

At times, the deck has appeared stacked against Baltimore when it comes to funding for repaving city streets. The city is the only locality in Maryland that maintains all of its own roads, and as a result, the city relies heavily on state Highway User funds to get the work done. The city’s share of those funds, however, has been subject to cuts in the last decade.

At the same time, Baltimore has struggled to spend the money it does have on paving. A Baltimore Banner analysis in December found that the city had repaved about 34 miles of roadway in 2025 — just 31% of its more than 100-mile goal.

On Tuesday, Scott announced that he was revamping the paving program.

“About time,” someone yelled from the back of the crowd in attendance, which included numerous elected officials, city employees and community partners.

Dubbing the initiative Repave Baltimore, the mayor pledged to reimagine paving “from top to bottom,” hiring more contractors, better analyzing the work of city crews and keeping better accounting of current street conditions.

“Let’s go,” another man yelled from the crowd in response.

Scott also announced a 90-day “sprint” for the Department of Transportation to begin in mid-April that will repave 25 miles of road and fill 25,000 potholes.

Crime fight

Scott has overseen the city as it turned a corner on annual homicides, an accomplishment the mayor highlighted Tuesday. Baltimore finished 2025 with 133 killings, a 48-year low after nearly a decade of more than 300 killings per year.

As he has in the past, the mayor credited his holistic approach to violence prevention for the declining numbers, touting “solutions that bring together community members, police officers and trusted voices to intervene in conflicts.”

In his speech, Scott pledged to continue the work of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, which spearheads the city’s hallmark violence prevention program.

That program, which focuses on at-risk youths and offers them services as an alternative, has been the target of criticism in the last year from Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming, who has released several reports on MONSE, and State’s Attorney Ivan Bates, who has ended his office’s partnership with the program. Bates was in attendance at the address Tuesday.

“Anyone who questions their work simply does not understand it and would not have the guts to do what they do each and every day,” Scott said of the program’s violence interruption workers. The crowd, which included many of the workers, responded with applause.

Sports!

Scott’s experience as a student athlete at Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School is well known to virtually anyone who has heard him speak. On Tuesday, he reminded attendees once again, this time as he announced his plan to build a city sports complex.

The facility, which has a $20 million commitment in his proposed budget for the coming fiscal year, would include a competition-level indoor track and basketball and volleyball courts designed to host tournaments.

Baltimore is home to exceptional athletes, Scott said, but they are forced to travel for tournaments or compete at rundown facilities, he said.

“Projects like this one send a clear message to our young people: They are worth investing in,” Scott said.

A location for the facility, which Scott pledged to break ground on before the end of his current term, has not been announced.