The Baltimore City Council scrutinized the Department of Public Works’ $1.34 billion proposed budget for the 2026 fiscal year, probing the agency’s recent performance and questioning its commitment to safeguarding employees.
Baltimore City Council President Zeke Cohen asked the first questions of the Wednesday evening hearing, focusing mainly on DPW’s commitment to the safety of its employees — especially in the coming warmer months of the year.
“We’ve had too many people die … too many people get hurt in this agency, for there to be anything other than a complete culture of safety in the Department of Public Works,” Cohen said.
He spoke about the recent report from Baltimore’s Office of the Inspector General, outlining the circumstances surrounding the heat-related death of DPW employee Ronald Silver II in August 2024, and asking how the agency has addressed the report’s concerns.
DPW Director Khalil Zaied told Cohen that since Silver’s death, the agency has addressed the “weak link” behind its administration and supervisors, and began requiring them to ensure that workers take breaks in accordance with a new heat safety plan.
Under this plan, when the temperature hits 90 degrees, DPW workers take a 10-minute break every two hours, and when it reaches 100 degrees, workers are required to break 15 for minutes every hour.
Cohen also mentioned that during a trip to a recycling facility, he saw that despite a great deal of glass spraying around the facility while being processed, many of the workers were not wearing goggles. When he asked why this was the case, Zaied said he did not know.
District 12 Councilman Jermaine Jones said that during another council visit to the Reedbird Sanitation Facility, also known as the Western Sanitation Yard, he noticed that the working conditions were poor, and asked whether there was a plan in place to improve the facility.
Zaied replied, telling him that the 2026 budget includes upgrades to the Reedbird Facility that are planned to begin in the fall, and that its operations were moved to DPW’s Neiman Avenue Facility on Monday.
Later in the hearing, Cohen continued to press questions about DPW worker well-being, specifically in regard to another OIG report which found that almost one in five workers in the agency were eligible for health insurance, but were not aware they were also eligible for a credit waiver.
Since the OIG report, Zaied says that DPW has worked with and enrolled over 100 of the employees identified by the report to be eligible for healthcare.
In regard to Baltimore residents’ concerns about the agency, District 14 Councilmember Odette Ramos said that several of her constituents told her that they were not receiving their bills consistently from DPW for services like water and trash.
Toya Sykes-Coates, chief of DPW’s Solid Waste Administration, told Ramos that the billing issues were due to “glitches” in the agency’s recently updated system, and that the software issues were resolved in April.
Councilman James Torrence highlighted comments he received from his District 7 constituents pertaining to maintenance projects being completed poorly, or failing to be completed at all. Like some other members of the council, Torrence speculated that DPW’s reliance on outsourcing certain jobs to contractors both takes away opportunities for Baltimoreans to work, and leads to less oversight.
Have a news tip? Contact Mathew Schumer at mschumer@baltsun.com, 443-890-7423 and on X as @mmmschumer.