Mayor Gavin Buckley has introduced his $145 million budget, proposing with it no new taxes and several additions to city departments despite an income tax revenue shortfall.

Buckley, who also delivered his State of the City address on Monday, highlighted ongoing efforts to invest in infrastructure, identify new revenue streams and combat flooding on City Dock while enhancing the downtown attraction.

“Annapolis is strong,” Buckley said, “and the citizens are fighting to make it stronger.”

The city has identified untapped money, including a pass-through tax on short-term rentals such as AirBnb and VRBO, which will help make up for less revenue from income taxes. The city has not been collecting hotel tax on these popular alternatives to traditional hotels or bed-and-breakfasts, nor has it been collecting its share of hotel taxes from booking platforms such as Priceline.

Still, proposed expenses in the general fund exceed revenues by $1.9 million. City Manager Teresa Sutherland said the difference will come from fund balance.

Total expenses, including those generated by enterprise funds, exceed revenues by $5.3 million. The mayor proposes $145 million in expenses and about $140 million in revenue.

In his State of the City address, Buckley highlighted the influence of the late House of Delegates Speaker Michael Busch, who died last Sunday.

Busch was instrumental in securing from the state for the first time a recurring $750,000 contribution to the city for “payments in lieu of taxes,” or PILOT, that will increase with inflation. The payments will not appear in the city budget until 2021.

Buckley announced a new pedestrian greenway across Spa Road to be called Busch Walk in honor of the speaker.

Sutherland and finance director Jodee Dickenson worked in the last year to clean up the city’s finances, Buckley said, and closed out several pre-existing “revolving funds” that supplied departments with unappropriated money once their budgets dried up.

The budget includes several shakeups in the structure of city government, including dissolving the Office of Environmental Policy.

Environmental Policy Director Jackie Guild would become an adviser in the mayor’s office, instead of the director of a separate office within the city government. The two remaining employees working for the office, a forester and program coordinator, will move to either the public works or planning and zoning departments.

Buckley called the move part of his commitment to the environment but will face a fight from Ald. Rob Savidge, D-Ward 7, who has introduced a competing ordinance making the office its own department.

Savidge wants to see the office introduce a middle-manager position to offload some work from Guild, but maintain the office as a part of city government with regulatory authority.

Residents, environmental advocates and members of the city’s newly appointed Waterways Cabinet spoke in favor of Savidge’s ordinance.

The budget will also attempt to codify the Office of Law in the City Charter and create the Office of Emergency Management as its own department, separate from the Fire Department.

Buckley in his address praised the actions of the Office of Emergency Management in the days before the Capital Gazette newsroom shooting, as the office organized an active assailant training one week before the attack. The staff members who died — Rob Hiaasen, Gerald Fischman, Rebecca Smith, John McNamara and Wendi Winters — were memorialized in the speech.

The mayor’s proposed budget adds $48,000 for tree planting and maintenance, $25,000 more for art in public places and $111,200 for cancer-preventative measures for fire-fighters, as well as $47,200 for a variety of One Annapolis events and initiatives. It provides funding for a second storm water engineer and assistant city manager among other positions.

Other business

Residents spoke in opposition to legislation regulating parking permits in residential areas.

Under the changes, residential parking permits would be issued to those with primary residences in a special parking district, as evidenced by state tax records.

The legislation would also create a permit for nonresidents who own property in the city, for the duration of their occupancy and limit the number of temporary parking permits a resident can obtain per month.

But residents, especially those with second properties, felt the legislation discriminated against them and unfairly limited their ability to own and rent property in the city.

dohl@capgaznews.com