Mayor Rawlings-Blake's Priority Outcomes for Baltimore City
The following initiatives are some examples of the Mayor’s long-term efforts to make Baltimore a better, safer and stronger City.
Better Schools
- Investing in Education Innovation
- Mayor Rawlings-Blake is committed to investing in innovative programs that support the Baltimore City Public Schools’ efforts to improve academic achievement. Accordingly, she has instituted new educational grants to programs like Teach for America and Experience Corps, which are proven to promote student achievement.
- Better Youth Program Coordination
- Mayor Rawlings-Blake is also focused on improved coordination of youth programs to empower Baltimore youth to learn more. The Mayor’s “Youth BMore” initiative will ensure all City, State and nonprofit youth-focused agencies are working in concert to maximize learning and earning outcomes for Baltimore City youth.
Safer Streets
- Enhanced Focus on Gun Violence
- Mayor Rawlings-Blake will implement new ways to target gun violence by focusing enforcement efforts on criminals most likely to carry illegal guns and commit acts of violence.
- Accelerated Recruitment of New Police Officers
- Mayor Rawlings-Blake launched a strategic plan to hire 100 new police officers by the end of 2010 and a record 350 police officers in 2011. The new plan will keep pace with attrition rates and fill funded positions in the Baltimore Police Department budget. The police officer hiring plan calls for additional measures to enhance and expedite the Police Department’s hiring process.
- Technology as a Force Multiplier
- Mayor Rawlings-Blake will invest in new innovative, proven technologies to improve public safety. Police Officers will have access to state-of the-art technology to help fight crime. Additional smart crime cameras and gunshot recognition technologies will be deployed in areas with historically high rates of crime and violence.
Stronger Neighborhoods
- Eliminating Vacant Housing and Blight
- Mayor Rawlings-Blake will launch “Vacants to Value”, a new approach to rehabbing vacant homes in Baltimore City that does not rely on taxpayer subsidies to create value. Vacants to Value can be broadly applied and produce outcomes that best address the scale of the vacant housing problem facing Baltimore today. To get results quickly a new enforcement regime will be implemented with citations in amounts up to $900 for vacant buildings.
Cleaner and Healthier City
- B’more for Healthy Babies
- This initiative is built on the realization that reducing infant deaths will happen only if people throughout the community play a part – whether it’s the leaders of the key city agencies, physicians, nurses and social workers; community groups and teachers; or fathers, grandmothers, caregivers and pregnant women themselves. For the first time, Baltimore has created a strategic initiative that brings together the right agencies and people to improve an often-fragmented health care system and reach families that are hardest to serve. Collaboration and cooperation among institutions is vital to our goal of reducing infant mortality and improving the health of Baltimore families.
Innovative Government
- Budgeting for Outcomes
- The City will improve upon its efforts to budget for outcomes. Whereas traditional budgets start with last year’s spending and are organized by agency, outcome-based budgets start with the results that matter to citizens and fund programs based on their value in achieving those results.