The chair of the City Council’s Budget Committee abruptly terminated a hearing today about setting up a task force to recommend how 14 Baltimore hospitals and universities who don’t pay property taxes should recompense the city for their use of municipal services.

Danielle McCray (D, 2nd) walked out of the council chambers as about 40 members of With Us For Us (WUFU) Coalition, formed to increase the amount of money that tax-exempt “anchor institutions” contribute to city coffers, looked on in astonishment.

“We don’t have anything yet to review. And we have already been down this road previously,” McCray told Councilwoman Phylicia Porter, the bill’s chief sponsor, after questioning her about why she hadn’t reached an agreement on bill amendments with the Scott administration before the hearing.

“That’s share blame. THAT IS SHARED BLAME,” McCray asserted, enunciating her words frostily. “At this time, I’m not wasting this committee’s time, I’m not wasting the members of this committee’s time. I’m putting this bill back in recess.”

McCray’s exit, in front of City Council President Zeke Cohen, who supports setting up the “Fair Share Task Force” to advise the Scott administration on future anchor institution payments, leaves the bill’s fate in question.

Already delayed once before in McCray’s committee, it was expected to be voted out favorably today and likely scheduled for a vote by the full Council at its September 15 meeting.

Eleven of the Council’s 15 members are listed as bill sponsors. Council President Cohen did not respond to a request for comment.

UPDATE: Cohen says that because the meeting was adjourned before a vote could be taken, Bill 25-0036 “is currently still in committee.”

Stop the “Purposeful Delays”

WUFU tonight issued a statement expressing deep disappointment about the “last-minute cancellation of today’s vote” and calling for an end to “purposeful delays and confusion by our elected officials.”

The statement noted that the bill was introduced last March, “which means the mayor’s team and City Council had five months to work through any questions about the amendments. The With Us for Us Coalition has successfully engaged over 600 people to send emails, call council members, canvas their neighborhoods and pack City Hall today – so elected officials will have to answer to the growing swell of constituents calling to pass Bill 25-0036.

• 14 Baltimore anchor institutions urged to contribute more to help the city (4/24/25)

“At its core,” the statement continued, “this bill is about transparency, accountability and getting a better deal for the people of Baltimore, something the mayor and members of the City Council should wholeheartedly support. We are calling on Mayor Brandon Scott to support Bill 25-0036, and Council President Zeke Cohen to move this bill through the City Council in a timely manner.”

In 2016, a PILOT (Payment in Lieu of Taxes) agreement was signed by then-Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake with the 14 tax-exempt institutions that called on the collective payment of $6 million annually through fiscal 2026.

Agreement to Expire Next June

With the current PILOT agreement expiring in June 2026, the WUFU Coalition is calling for the Fair Share Task Force to get to work as soon as possible, noting that the last agreement – struck “behind closed doors” – let the institutions pay only a fraction of the estimated $110-$120 million they would pay if not exempt from city property taxes.

In an interview with The Brew, coalition co-leader Loraine Arikat, a senior policy analyst at 1199 SEIU, said the group met last February with Mayor Scott’s staff and believed they had the mayor’s support.

“Since then, they have had plenty of opportunities to get back to us and discuss the task force, its functions and composition,” she said.

At the start of today’s hearing, Ty’lor Schnella, the mayor’s representative, told McCray that “at this moment, we are still not 100% aligned on the amendments” and “we’re not ready to provide support” for Bill 25-0036.

Much of the dispute between the mayor’s office and Porter involves the composition of the proposed 17-member task force.

For example, the current bill calls for five union representatives selected from the anchor institutions. The mayor’s office wants only three union members, and the two others selected on the basis of their “demonstrated experience with municipal or nonprofit financing agreements.” The institutions themselves would have five members, and the rest would be city officials.

The mayor’s office also wants to strike language that directs the task force to develop a formula for PILOT payments based on “an institution’s total property tax exemption and use of city services,” and instead calls on the committee to educate the public about existing PILOT agreements.

According to a study by the Baltimore Department of Finance, the 14 tax-exempt institutions consume more than $47 million a year in fire and police protection, street maintenance and other municipal services – or eight time more than the $6 million they currently pay.

By far the largest nonprofit in the group, Johns Hopkins has responded by saying it pays large amounts of other fees to the city, including $8 million in annual water and sewer charges and $26 million in income taxes for the nearly 17,000 employees who are city residents.

In addition, its hospital network provides more than $80 million a year in financial assistance to uninsured and underinsured patients.

So far, Hopkins and the other institutions have not publicly commented on the task force bill.