BALTIMORE (WBFF) — For months, Project Baltimore has been trying to solve a mystery. Baltimore City Public Schools is out nearly half-a-million dollars that has never been reimbursed by Baltimore City. Why?
The nearly $500,000 was paid by North Avenue to school police officers for overtime during the pandemic. But the city never paid the school system back.
Now, Baltimore’s Mayor and Baltimore’s school system appear to have different versions of what happened.
“Have you talked to the school system about this? Because they are saying they put in reimbursement,” asked Project Baltimore’s Chris Papst at a recent press conference.
Mayor Brandon Scott replied, “I’m going to say what I said you to, one more time. If we receive it, we’ll pay it.”
From July 2020 to July 2021, City Schools says it submitted a total of $481,452 in police overtime at Covid testing sites for reimbursement. Baltimore City Schools expected the city to reimburse that money using federal covid relief funding.
But years later, the district hasn’t been paid back and getting an answer has proven to be difficult.
Project Baltimore started in October by going directly to City Schools.
“I just simply want to know why $500,000 in police overtime has not been reimbursed to the school system,” Papst explained to Andre Riley, Baltimore City Schools Executive Director of Communications prior to a school board meeting. “You know the answer. I don’t know why you’re not telling me.”
“How do you know I know the answer?” Riley replied.
“You, as in the school system, know the answer,” Papst said.
But North Avenue wouldn’t provide the answers, they say, because of the investigation into School Police Officer and football coach Lawrence Smith.
Smith was arrested in September and charged with 15 felony counts. He’s accused of fraudulently obtaining more than $215,000 in overtime that he did not actually work. And many of his overtime hours were logged at “COVID testing sites”.
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When the school system refused to answer our questions about why the nearly $500,000 was not reimbursed, Project Baltimore went to Mayor Scott.
According to City Schools, the overtime was submitted to Baltimore City’s finance department, and in October, Mayor Scott explained he would look into it.
“I’m going to make sure you get that information so you can get to the truth and don’t have to guess,” Mayor Scott told Project Baltimore, at the time.
In November, the mayor provided an unexpected answer.
“We can only reimburse what we’ve received. We have not received that. When we do, we’ll pay it,” said Scott.
“You have not received any reimbursement?”, asked Papst.
“It has not been received by the finance department. When we receive it, we’ll repay it, like we do every bill,” Scott told Project Baltimore.
Remember, North Avenue told Fox45 News — in response to a public records request — that it submitted for reimbursements years ago. The mayor says that never happened.
So, Project Baltimore then went back to city schools to find out.
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The district, in a new statement provided this week says, “In light of the federal investigation, City Schools has been reviewing the invoices from the period for which Project Baltimore requested documentation. We will work with the city to update our reimbursement request, if necessary, once that process is complete.”
City Schools appears to be standing by its claim that it submitted a reimbursement request.
The city’s finance department says it has no records of that request.
Two government entities with two conflicting accounts. And, remember what’s at stake here is nearly half-a-million taxpayer dollars that were already paid to school police officers. And one of those officers has been indicted by the FBI.
