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ROCKVILLE, MD (November 21, 2022) — The Baltimore City Council, led by City Council President Nick Mosby, is pushing a bill that would shorten the time required for city elected officials to earn a pension from the current 12 years to eight years and increase the age at which they can begin collecting payments from 50 to 55. City finance and pension officials have scoffed at the Council for advancing enhancements to their own retirement benefits.

Maryland Public Policy Institute President and Chief Executive Officer Christopher Summers issued the following statement:

Bill 22-0292 should be rejected by the City Council.

No one could claim with a straight face that working a mere eight years justifies being paid a full pension on the taxpayers’ dime. The existing requirement that elected officials only serve 12 years to earn decades worth of public pension income was insulting enough to taxpayers. But this bill goes beyond financial insult, as City Council President Mosby and his co-conspirators have also constructed the bill to benefit themselves. By applying the change to those who are in office as of December 1 of this year, the City Council put themselves in an indisputable conflict of interest. How can taxpayers trust them to do what is in the best interest of the city when their own finances are at stake?

And if that wasn’t bad enough, Baltimore voters just approved Question K, which limited the city’s elected officials to serving two consecutive four-year terms in the same office—requiring them to run for an alternative position if they want to continue in elected office. That just happens to be the same number of years this bill would allow city elected officials to earn a pension. City residents sent a clear message by overwhelmingly approving Question K: they want better than the politicians who’ve used the city government as an ATM for years. Instead of hearing that message, however, it appears Mosby and the other Council members who voted for this bill panicked and are trying to max out their ATM withdrawals as quickly as possible.

The Maryland Public Policy Institute is a nonpartisan public policy research and education organization that focuses on state policy issues. The Institute’s mission is to formulate and promote public policies at all levels of government based on principles of free enterprise, limited government, and civil society. Learn more at mdpolicy.org.