By: Brendan Kearney

Baltimore faced a major budget crisis earlier this year, leading to dire threats of spending cuts and revenue-raising measures, some of which were eventually implemented. The mayor threatened to close rec centers and fire houses, ground the police helicopter, and reduce other municipal services. Eventually, there were layoffs, pension cuts for police and fire fighters (which have led to federal litigation), and increased taxes.

But more than pension obligations contributed to the city’s money problems, and one contributing factor — maybe small but maybe larger than we’d like to believe — is plain from my story in today’s paper: simple but expensive mistakes.

To cut to the chase, some city employee forgot to punctually withdraw from a bank account more than a million dollars the city was owed by a Fells Point developer, forcing the city to sue the developer, which eventually resulted in a $400,000 settlement.

That’s right, $600,000 of taxpayer money went instead to developer Larry Silverstein because somebody was asleep at the switch. Silverstein, whose Union Wharf LLC was the party in the case, and his Union Box Co. have successfully repurposed several old buildings in the Fells Point area. He’s not the richest Larry Silverstein I know of, but I doubt he needs a windfall, and Baltimore can’t afford to give money away to anyone, much less a wealthy developer. (Note: I’m not alleging corruption here, merely an expensive mistake.)

Silverstein has not returned messages left yesterday and today seeking comment, and the city law department hasn’t been able to tell me who messed up. I also haven’t heard from several members of the City Council I asked about the approval of today’s settlement.

And while police misconduct, which also costs the city millions, is a different matter, the police also make mistakes that end up costing the city a tidy total. One particular example springs to mind.

While a couple hundred thousand dollars here and there doesn’t close a $121 million budget gap, eventually hundreds of thousands become millions, and millions pile up, too.

Allow me one turn at the “what would that money have bought?” game.

Remember when the city almost had to close several public pools in the heat of August because it couldn’t afford to keep them open and were saved at the 11th hour by a flood of private donations?

Yea, much of that grandstanding with city children as the pawns might have been avoided if the city had simply gone to the bank on time to withdraw the $1 million from Union Wharf’s account.