Instead of taxes, several of Baltimore’s largest nonprofit institutions pay a smaller, agreed-upon amount to the city each year to compensate for the services they use and the land they control.

With the 2016-enacted payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement set to expire next year, a coalition of community advocates, union leaders and neighborhood groups hopes to pressure the city to significantly renegotiate the amount it pulls in from these 14 tax-exempt institutions — and they want to help determine the amount.

Working with City Councilwoman Phylicia Porter, who at Monday night’s City Council meeting will introduce related legislation, the coalition, called With Us For Us, wants to establish a task force to develop a funding formula for the 14 organizations, which include Johns Hopkins, the University of Maryland Medical System and several other healthcare networks and universities.

This, they say, would result in a more transparent and robust agreement than what exists now, which was negotiated behind closed doors and resulted in a $6 million per year deal.

“There’s real potential for a better agreement,” said Loraine Arikat, senior policy analyst at 1199SEIU, which is helping to lead the campaign. “We like to remind people that the PILOT is supposed to be fair.”

Specifically, Arikat noted a study from the city’s Department of Finance that found the so-called “anchor institutions” use more than $47 million combined in city services every year for things like police and fire protection and street maintenance. But collectively, they contribute only $6 million annually to the city through the voluntary payment agreement — leaving city residents, Arikat said, to bear the brunt instead.

In addition, according to the study, the organizations collectively own more than $5 billion worth of property and, if taxed, would contribute about $120 million a year.

A 2024 report on PILOT agreements from Comptroller Bill Henry’s office urged city leadership to add more transparency and community involvement to future deals. It also encouraged establishing “concrete, quantifiable methods” for the contribution amount to eliminate perceptions of unfairness and for the value to adjust for inflation each year.

Members of With Us For Us previously petitioned for a ballot measure that, if approved by voters, would have redirected some of the existing PILOT money to a community wealth fund. That would have supported neighborhood-level services such as day cares, urban farms and grassroots financial institutions, for example.

But they didn’t get enough signatures to submit the measure to the state Board of Elections last year. Now, they’re pivoting the focus to renegotiating the PILOT agreement through City Council legislation.

Their push revved up in January when numerous residents read prepared, coordinated remarks criticizing the existing PILOT agreements and suggesting they were partly to blame for the city’s latest increase of water and sewer rates.

“If our wealthy tax-exempt hospitals and universities pay their fair share through the payment in lieu of taxes, or PILOT agreements, the revenue collected through the PILOT agreement can go toward addressing our outdated water and sewer infrastructure instead of burdening Baltimore residents with the cost every year,” said Abigail Ulman, one of the residents in attendance and a member of With Us For Us.

PILOT agreements are typically negotiated by the mayor’s office and a representative from the Department of Law.

Porter, the bill’s lead sponsor, said at a City Council lunchtime meeting that she wants the negotiation to be more “collaborative.” Porter said she views the task force as a “community engagement arm” that can transparently communicate the details of an agreement to the public.

“One of the major issues we heard ... is that residents did not know about it, they did not know what the PILOT was, and, finally, they did not know where the funds were going,” she said Monday.

But it wasn’t clear if those grassroots groups will have a seat at the negotiating table. At Monday night’s City Council meeting, Porter added that she wanted community members to play a role in “shaping these discussions.”

Scott’s office did not immediately respond to a request Monday for comment about the bill.

Representatives from the Johns Hopkins University and its affiliated hospitals — the largest contributors to the PILOT agreement — did not respond to a request for comment. Michael Schwartzberg, a spokesman for the University of Maryland Medical System, the second-largest contributor, declined to comment, saying the institution had not yet reviewed the bill language. Representatives from MedStar Health, Lifebridge Health, Loyola University Maryland and the Maryland Institute College of Art, which pay far less toward the agreement, also did not respond.

It may be a particularly difficult time for city officials to seek higher payments from colleges, hospitals and affiliated research universities, which are under intense financial strain and scrutiny. Maryland’s highly regulated hospitals are stretched by an aging patient population that needs more and more expensive care, while their labor costs are rising. And Trump administration cost cutters have taken aim at hundreds of millions in research dollars that sustain labs, clinical trials and jobs both inside and outside the universities. Big cuts to the federal program that pay the bills for Medicaid patients are also possible.

Already, tensions between the community coalition and the city have surfaced: In a January WYPR radio interview, Arikat, with 1199SEIU, accused city officials of not tracking whether the institutions were honoring the agreement.

Not true, according to the city. Anne Gardner, chief of staff at the Baltimore Department of Finance, said the department has tracked and received all payments since the agreement began. The contributions, she added, come in quarterly.

The task force, according to the initial draft of the bill, would be composed of 17 people, including 10 designees of Mayor Brandon Scott. Five of Scott’s picks would be nominated by the Metro Baltimore AFL-CIO labor union; another two members would represent large hospitals with more than 500 beds; and one member would represent hospitals with fewer than 500 beds. The mayor’s designees would also tap two representatives of the Maryland Independent College and University Association.

Three members, nominated by City Council President Zeke Cohen, would be Baltimore residents who earn incomes below the area median, which stands at around $120,000, according to state metrics. Scott, Cohen, Henry, City Solicitor Ebony Thompson and Housing Commissioner Alice Kennedy would also have seats on the task force or could nominate designees.

According to the draft bill, the task force would determine a standard payment formula for each of the institutions that accounts for property tax exemptions and use of city services. The group would be responsible for publishing public reports each year on the “status” of the payments for each institution and for educating city residents about the purpose and benefits of this PILOT and any others that exist citywide.

Cohen and most of the rest of the City Council have signed on as co-sponsors.

This article may be updated.

Baltimore Banner reporters Emily Opilo and Meredith Cohn contributed to this article.