Pandemic spending under scruntiny, Baltimore City Schools officer paid $105k in overtime at Covid hotel
Pandemic spending under scruntiny, Baltimore City Schools officer paid $105k in overtime at Covid hotel (WBFF)br
Baltimore (WBFF) —
A Project Baltimore investigation is raising serious questions over how Baltimore City spent your tax dollars during the Covid pandemic.
For months, Project Baltimore has been investigating how the funds were spent in Baltimore, much of which came from the federal government. We’ve learned just one City Schools police officer received more than $100,000 of it.
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The Lord Baltimore Hotel, located at 20 W. Baltimore Street, has played host to Baltimore’s guests for nearly 100 years. But starting in May of 2020, it served a different function.
“We think this is a really important resource for individuals who can’t safely isolate,” Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Letitia Dzirasa said during a May 2020 news conference.
In May 2020, the hotel was transformed into temporary housing for people who tested positive for Covid-19. The project was funded as part of the CARES Act, $100 million dollars worth of federal coronavirus relief money, that came to the City of Baltimore. For nearly two years, the Lord Baltimore Hotel housed covid patients.
“This includes individuals who live in multi-generational households, members of the immigrant community, people experiencing homelessness,” Dzirasa explained in May 2020.
But a Project Baltimore investigation is raising serious concerns over how some of the covid relief money was spent.
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Project Baltimore, for months, has been investigating the Baltimore City Schools police department, including overtime hours paid to City Schools Officer and Dunbar head football coach, Lawrence Smith.
Through a public records request, Project Baltimore obtained Smith’s overtime records and found, between May 2020 and August 2021, Smith submitted 331 overtime forms, totaling 2,136 overtime hours at the Lord Baltimore Hotel Covid Site. At his then-pay rate of $32.83 an hour, at time and a half, that totals around $105,000. But was Smith actually at the hotel working all those hours?
In January, Project Baltimore reported on a live Facebook video from August 6, 2021. In the video, Smith is seen driving a boat on the Chesapeake Bay, on that day, at 6:24 pm. But Smith’s overtime forms say he was working at the Lord Baltimore Hotel from 4pm to midnight.
Project Baltimore found other examples where Smith’s overtime forms say he was working the “Covid 19 test site lord Baltimore hotel”, but his own Facebook posts show he was conducting virtual football meetings at the same time.
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In September, Smith was indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice, accused of 15 felonies related to fraudulently obtaining more than $215,000 in overtime and tax evasion. If convicted, Smith faces decades in prison.
In the indictment, the DOJ states that Smith received overtime pay for hours “he had not worked”, which included “COVID testing sites”. The indictment says, instead of working, Smith was doing things like “socializing” or “Coaching football”.
If Smith submitted overtime forms totaling 2,136 hours at the Lord Baltimore Hotel, between May 2020 and August 2021, that means he worked nearly 4.5 overtime hours a day, every day, for 16 straight months. That seems like a lot. But apparently, it wasn’t enough to raise questions for City Schools, which kept approving and paying the overtime. Remember, Smith made $105,000 in overtime just at the Lord Baltimore Hotel. So, the question now becomes, was he the only one?
To find out, Project Baltimore filed a public records request with City Schools, asking how much overtime city schools police officers were paid for working at the Lord Baltimore Hotel during Covid. Project Baltimore also requested the list of officers’ names who worked at the hotel.
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Fox45 News knows the school system paid those officers for the overtime, and the City was supposed to use federal relief funds to reimburse the district. So, Project Baltimore also asked for the total amount “submitted to Baltimore City for reimbursement.”
Project Baltimore filed that request this past July and did not receive a response until late September. City Schools did not provide any of the records Fox45 News asked for, claiming it’s “still evaluating the impact of ongoing investigations” including “Lawrence Smith.”
While City Schools did not give us what we asked for in our public records request, we did get some information about how the city spent Covid relieve money, which may point to a much larger problem concerning how Baltimore spent your tax dollars during the pandemic. Project Baltimore will have more on that part of the story Wednesday on Fox45 News at Ten.
2023-10-10 02:30:00
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