Johns Hopkins, for its nearly 150 years of existence, has been peerless.

Hopkins receives more federal research funds than any other institution, making it the R&D department for the United States. With its 150 acres valued at more than $2.6 billion, it is a tax-exempt real estate giant. It employs more than 10% of the city’s workforce and is the largest employer in Baltimore. It even has its own police force and transit system — almost as if it were sovereign.

In Baltimore, Johns Hopkins’ influence is unrivaled. There is little it cannot do. Even those whose job requires them to regulate Hopkins say fighting it can be futile.

But when you stand alone — peerless — you also stand out.

Johns Hopkins, like other elite schools, is facing unprecedented scrutiny from the federal government. The Trump administration’s war to excise left-wing bias from academia is threatening Hopkins’ research-industrial complex.

At the same time, a grassroots coalition of labor groups and activists is organizing to demand that Johns Hopkins and other tax-exempt nonprofits pay millions more to Baltimore annually. They argue that these institutions, maybe especially Hopkins, have not paid their fair share.

All of this is happening during a period that the American public has grown increasingly distrustful of education and medical institutions. While Johns Hopkins officials acknowledge that this moment is “critical,” they also see an opening.

“I believe that there is such a huge opportunity for Baltimore to partner with Hopkins, and for Hopkins to partner with Baltimore to completely transform our city,” said Beth Blauer, vice president for public impact initiatives at Johns Hopkins.

What Johns Hopkins pays

Three million, two hundred fifty thousand dollars. That’s how much Johns Hopkins has paid Baltimore every year, voluntarily, for almost a decade as part of a broader agreement the city has with it and other land-owning nonprofits, which are legally exempt from paying property taxes.

Known as payment in lieu of taxes, or PILOT, the agreement is a way for the city to recoup a small fraction of the revenue it is missing out on from places like the University of Maryland Medical Center and Lifebridge Health. About one-fifth of all tax-exempt property in Maryland is within city limits, which is partly why Baltimore’s property tax rate is so high.

The 14 institutions with which the city has PILOT agreements collectively own $4.8 billion of real estate; they pay $6 million a year under the PILOT. If they had to pay property taxes, they would pay more than $100 million. Johns Hopkins, by far the largest of the PILOT participants, would have a tax bill of almost $60 million.

The $3.25 million Johns Hopkins pays now is a significant increase from what it paid under the original PILOT agreement the city reached in 2011. That deal, which was brokered during a period of financial distress, with City Hall threatening a “bed tax” on colleges and hospitals, brought in $20.4 million from 14 institutions over six years.

Nonprofits entered into the 2011 agreement thinking it would be a one-time affair, said Kaliope Parthemos, at that time a top deputy for then-Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. Parthemos said that understanding made for tense negotiations for her when she was chief of staff in 2016, but in hindsight she is pleased with the deal.

“The city has established a framework for its first-ever voluntary nonprofit agreements and laid the foundation that nonprofit contributions are not only vital, but expected moving forward,” she said.

Hopkins officials have bristled at the notion that the institution does not pay its fair share. The $3.25 million is only part of the picture, they say, and, actually, Hopkins pays “far more.” In a lengthy statement titled “Johns Hopkins Proudly Contributes to Baltimore’s Progress,” officials said the university and health system annually pay $46 million in taxes and fees, and spend $14 million a year to provide its own street cleaning, trash removal, snow plowing and public safety.

However, a 2024 report from Comptroller Bill Henry’s office estimated that Hopkins, both the university and the health system, also use more than $26 million in city services each year.

“We bring in new residents, good jobs, economic activity, and tax revenue to the city. Growing Baltimore’s tax base and driving economic activity in our city are the most important roles we can continue to serve for our hometown,” Johns Hopkins Vice Presidents Blauer, Maria Tildon and Alicia Wilson wrote in the statement.

All together, the university and hospital spent $405 million in the Baltimore area during the 2024 fiscal year, according to figures Hopkins provided. That spending includes $83 million of charity care at Hopkins’ facilities for underinsured and uninsured patients, and $60 million in “community health services.”

Nonprofit health systems regularly point to charity care for poor patients as proof of how much benefit they offer the community, but sometimes that figure can be misleading, said Ge Bai, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey School of Business and Bloomberg School of Public Health. Nonprofit hospitals make so much money, boosted by their tax exemptions, that the line between them and their for-profit counterparts is “very murky,” Bai said.

“Taxpayers are right to ask ‘Are we getting our fair share or a good deal from the tax exemption?’” she said.

Can Baltimore get more?

Baltimore’s current PILOT expires next year, and Mayor Brandon Scott’s office is expected to pursue a new agreement for more money, though how much is unclear. Scott’s office did not return a request for comment.

A coalition of labor unions, community activists and elected officials, known as With Us, For Us, is backing a City Council bill to create a PILOT task force add more transparency in the deal-making process.

With Us, For Us did not return multiple requests for an interview, but its organizers laid out their goals at a news conference earlier this year.

They largely mirror recommendations from Henry’s report, which suggested more transparency and community involvement for future agreements. It also encouraged establishing “concrete, quantifiable methods” for the contribution amount to eliminate perceptions of unfairness and for the value to adjust for annual inflation.

Other cities, like Boston, negotiated more lucrative PILOT deals with colleges and hospitals. When Boston rolled out its PILOT agreement in 2012, it asked participating nonprofits to contribute 25% of what their property tax bills would be if they weren’t tax exempt. Participation, though, is voluntary and not all institutions contribute equally. Boston brought in $34.9 million in PILOT payments in fiscal year 2024, about three-quarters of what it had sought.

New Haven, Connecticut, stands out as having struck one of the best deals for a city in a deal with Yale University in 2021 to nearly double the existing payments. New Haven receives $23 million from Yale annually through 2026. Yale’s real estate portfolio is worth an estimated $4.2 billion.

Henry Fernandez, a Yale graduate and former economic development director for New Haven, helped broker that agreement. When Yale was paying just $13 million annually, Fernandez said there was a community divide with the elite school commonly known as “town and gown.” Before the most recent agreement, signs around New Haven read “Yale: Respect New Haven” and “Yale, Pay More.”

“I’m sure some of those haven’t been put away, but new ones haven’t been printed,” Fernandez said. If anything, the increased payment has helped bridge the town-and-gown divide, he said.

“I think the deal … changed the relationship between the city and Yale in the minds of a significant portion of the people who live in New Haven,” Fernandez said.

Virtually everyone at City Hall agrees that Baltimore should get more from its nonprofits, but no one is willing to say how much.

Council President Zeke Cohen, supports a task force to be in place before the current PILOT expires, and said it was imperative that the city finds a “fair deal.”

“This task force will bring residents, community advocates and institutional leaders together to develop recommendations that ensure anchor institutions pay their fair share while continuing to invest in our city,” he said.

The bill to create a PILOT task force is set for a hearing in September. But even if the task force makes it through the City Council and becomes law, Scott’s office could reach a new agreement before then.

The federal dilemma

The thing about Johns Hopkins, according to its administration, is that the institution already does a lot for Baltimore, but people just don’t realize it.

“Sometimes it’s not always recognized, all the contributions, because, in many ways, this institution is quite humble,” said Wilson, Hopkins’ vice president of civic engagement and opportunity. “I know you might say, ‘Really, Alicia?’ I actually do [believe this] because many things that people have that impact their lives in Baltimore, they don’t realize has a Hopkins genesis.”

Beyond the charity care and the economic impact of using local vendors and employing so many people, Hopkins has other benefits. It offers employee home-buying incentives in Baltimore; free tuition so local low-income students can attend the university; funding for gun violence reduction programs; and it works with local schools to provide glasses and nurses.

Hopkins’ critics do not dispute that the institution is a net positive for Baltimore. Councilwoman Odette Ramos, whose district includes the university’s campus and believes Johns Hopkins often gets to do “whatever it wants,” said that she gets her health care through the hospital, which is “the best in the world,” and that the university is “world class.”

While casting itself as a humble, benevolent behemoth might be a helpful public relations exercise, it probably won’t fend off an increase in payments to the city. The most compelling argument Johns Hopkins can make on that front is also the most painful: The federal government has come for its pocketbook.

The Trump administration cut about $800 million of the $4.2 billion Hopkins receives annually. Hopkins has dipped into its endowment, which is substantial but largely limited in how it is spent, to cover some of this year’s research gaps. But more than 2,000 people have already been laid off, and hiring across the institution is largely frozen.

Despite this, Hopkins has actually fared better than Ivy League counterparts.

The Trump administration has sent demands to Columbia and Harvard, in addition to withholding federal funds, and Columbia recently agreed to pay the administration $200 million to restore its federal funding. The New York Times reported that Harvard officials are weighing whether to pay $500 million under a similar agreement.

While the Trump administration has not sought such a payment from Hopkins, any payment would almost certainly make it more difficult for city leaders to secure a more favorable new PILOT agreement. Both sides have basically said as much.

“These new fiscal realities for the university and health system will no doubt have a cascading impact on our hometown,” Wilson, Blauer and Tildon wrote in a statement.

The path forward

Johns Hopkins has seemingly plotted a careful path forward.

President Ron Daniels has sought in recent years to hire more conservative faculty and staff. He’s worked with a conservative think tank to that end, and wrote in his 2021 book, “What Universities Owe Democracy,” about what he perceives as conservative brain drain from the academy.

Hiring conservatives, could stave off further targeting by the federal government. It certainly won’t hurt.

And in City Hall, Johns Hopkins has lent its expertise to the mayor’s office, binding them closer. The university is working with the city to tackle Baltimore’s vacant homes and overdose crises and on approaches to reducing gun violence. Johns Hopkins’ Wilson has been friends with the mayor since high school. Scott’s former chief of staff is the director of government affairs for Hopkins.

Given the volatility in Washington, it is possible the landscape can change between now and the expiration of the current PILOT. The only certainty is this: Johns Hopkins will find a way.

Correction: This article has been updated to correct the spelling of Ge Bai's name.