On Wednesday,Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake joined members of her Administration and Results for America representatives to release a new study highlighting Baltimore as one of the nation’s best cities in driving better results for residents through the use of data and evidence.
Baltimore is highlighted as a city utilizing best practices for investing limited taxpayer dollars in programs that demonstrate they work, while directing funds away from those that consistently fail to achieve measurable outcomes.
The study, “Geek Cities: How Smarter Use of Data and Evidence Can Improve Lives,” notes Baltimore’s leadership in transforming municipal budgeting.
“Traditional budgeting is easy, but it often produces budgets that protect underperforming services and punish services that deliver results and advance priorities most important to residents,” said Rawlings-Blake. “In Baltimore, we turned that old model on its head by first seeking to better understand what the needs of our citizens were and then building our budgets to reflect their priorities and achieve those outcomes. Thanks to outcome budgeting, we maintained and even enhanced funding for services that demonstrated effectiveness – even as we grappled with a virtually unprecedented fiscal crisis.”