Baltimore Approves 45 New Sanitation Jobs to Bolster Collections

The Board of Estimates voted January 8 to authorize 45 new full-time positions in the Department of Public Works’ Bureau of Solid Waste, creating roughly 15 new crews to handle curbside garbage and residential recycling. Each crew will be led by a driver and supported by two laborers, expanding the agency that currently employs about 350 blue-collar sanitation workers.

City officials framed the move as a direct response to persistent service gaps and sharp criticism of working conditions exposed in Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming’s reports last year. The reports followed two on-duty deaths in 2024, including the August 2 heat-related death of solid waste worker Ronald Silver II and another employee who was run over by a garbage truck in an alley. Cumming’s findings faulted poor training, inadequate safety protocols during heatwaves, dilapidated equipment and abusive supervision practices.

The hiring authorization also includes funding for four supervisor positions charged with inspecting trucks and sanitation yards and planning capital improvements to the fleet. Those roles are intended to address chronic equipment failures and yard conditions that the inspector general identified as contributing to unsafe operations.

The vote comes as Local 44 of AFSCME undergoes a leadership shift. For the first time, a grassroots candidate, Stancil McNair, won the union presidency twice after the union ordered a re-run of its membership election, citing interference following public encouragement from the inspector general for workers to vote. McNair welcomed the additional hires, saying they will provide a much-needed “bench” to improve route and service reliability. He also urged that the new supervisor openings be made available to current employees to create career advancement pathways. McNair and the newly elected Local 44 board members say they have not yet received a copy of the Scott administration’s recently negotiated contract, which included the first large-scale salary increases in decades.

Sanitation laborers remain among the lowest paid municipal employees, with starting salaries reported as low as $41,000 and driver pay in the mid-$50,000s. City leaders and union officials face pressure to translate the new positions into measurable improvements in pickup consistency, worker safety and equipment reliability.

For Baltimore residents, the authorization offers a near-term prospect of steadier collections and fewer missed routes, but implementation will determine outcomes. Staffing alone will not fix aging trucks, training gaps or supervisory failures; the effectiveness of the new hires will depend on fleet investments, strengthened safety protocols and transparent oversight to prevent further tragedies and restore public trust in city sanitation services.