April 28, 2015

Speaking of outsiders in Baltimore

Baltimore Sun, 2012 - As Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake pursues her goal of attracting 10,000 families to Baltimore over a decade, she might consider launching a recruiting drive down at City Hall.

More than 40 percent of municipal workers reside outside the city they serve, and 5 percent don’t even live in Maryland, according to statistics posted on a city website. Baltimore County is home to about a quarter of the workforce of 14,559 city workers.

Here are some other nuggets The Baltimore Sun found in the numbers:

-- Nearly one in 10 of the Police Department’s 3,459 employees lives across the state line, but fewer than 30 percent live inside city limits.

-- Among the Fire Department’s 1,702 employees, 11 percent live outside Maryland and just over a third reside in Baltimore City.

Unlike Baltimore, Philadelphia requires members of both its blue and white collar unions to reside within municipal borders. While Philadelphia police officers recently won the right to live outside the city, they still can’t move over the Pennsylvania line to, say, Maryland or the Jersey Shore.

Maryland law prohibits the city and counties from imposing residency requirements. But for some job openings, Baltimore gives extra points to applicants who live in the city.

Via Gren Whitman

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