Trying to get ripped but can’t afford a membership at a swanky gym?

With a job in the Baltimore Sheriff’s Office, you could get fit on the taxpayers’ dime. The law enforcement division has plenty of vacant positions, and many of them come with a subscription to Merritt Athletic Clubs, the fitness chain with locations in Canton, Federal Hill and blocks from City Hall.

Baltimore’s spending board is expected to approve a $65,400 contract Wednesday morning covering 100 gym memberships for the sheriff’s office.

The perk is a new one, Sheriff Sam Cogen said, with the office only in its second year of offering memberships to employees. It’s among many measures Cogen has taken to overhaul and modernize his office after 33 years under a sheriff who didn’t use a computer. And the office already has its subscriptions locked in for a third year: According to Board of Estimates agendas, officials earlier this month approved a separate set of Merritt memberships running from the summer of 2025 to the summer of 2026.

Cogen said virtually every police department in the country has access to a gym, and he stressed the importance of physical fitness and healthy lifestyles for effective law enforcement, especially his 103 sworn officers, who get priority on the memberships. The office has 235 budgeted positions.

“We track who’s using the gym and who’s not, and if you’re not using the gym, then we encourage people to use it,” said Cogen, who said 98 of his office’s memberships are currently claimed. The first-term sheriff also pointed to requirements for annual fitness testing under the Maryland’s 2021 Police Accountability Act as further justification for the memberships.

The sheriff’s office is based out of the 124-year-old Clarence M. Mitchell Courthouse, where there is no fitness facility, and where Cogen said it wouldn’t be feasible to bring in weights. Officers in the Baltimore Police Department, meanwhile, have access to gyms at certain district stations and at the department’s headquarters, but the agency does not have contracts with any private fitness centers, according to a police spokesperson.

Of Merritt’s three locations in Baltimore City, the facility on Calvert Street near City Hall can be a who’s-who of Baltimore politicos. Cogen himself is a Merritt member, though he said he doesn’t go to the location on Calvert Street and pays for his own subscription because he didn’t want to benefit from a policy he’d implemented.

The sheriff’s office noted that it looked into possible ethics violations related to contract. In response to an inquiry from Assistant Sheriff Nicholas Blendy this June, the general counsel for the State Ethics Commission said he didn’t think the deal violated ethics law, according to the exchange shared by the sheriff’s office.

Cogen said his office explored options for contracts with other area gyms, but chose Merritt because, among other things, it offered 24-hour access, nutrition seminars and health and wellness courses catered specifically to the sheriff’s deputies.

The deal comes out to about $650 per membership, which Cogen said is a discounted rate. A 12-month “Platinum” subscription at the Merritt would cost anyone else close to $1,400, according to a sign-up form on the gym’s website.

The office’s 2024-2025 contract with the Merritt began at the beginning of July but, according to the Board of Estimates agenda, was not submitted in time for renewal. Cogen said the delay was due to a hold-up in the city’s procurement division, but he said Merritt has allowed members to keep using their facilities despite the lapsed contract.

To anyone who has an issue with sheriff’s deputies getting swole at the private gym, Cogen has a reply. “Build the sheriff’s office an office,” he said, so it no longer has to work out of space in the courthouse.

Focusing on the health and wellness of officers is “part of the professionalism that we’re putting in place here at the Sheriff’s Office, and that’s not free,” he said.