Baltimore (WBFF) – An investigation through the Baltimore Project raises serious questions about how Baltimore City spent its tax dollars during the Covid pandemic.
For months, the Baltimore Project has been investigating how the budget was spent in Baltimore, much of which came from the federal government. We learned that a single municipal police officer earned more than $100,000.
The Lord Baltimore Hotel, at 20 W. Baltimore Street, has welcomed visitors from Baltimore for about a hundred years, but as of May 2020, it served another function.
“We think this is a great resource for people who can’t safely isolate,” said Dr. Brown. Letitia Dzirasa, Baltimore City Health Commissioner, at a press conference in May 2020.
In May 2020, the hotel became transitional accommodation for others who tested positive for Covid-19. The task was funded through the CARES Act, a $100 million federal coronavirus relief fund, which paid to Baltimore City. For years, the Lord Baltimore Hotel housed covid patients.
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“This includes other people living in multigenerational households, members of the immigrant community, and other homeless people,” Dzirasa explained in May 2020.
But an investigation through the Baltimore Project raises serious questions about how some of the aid money was spent.
The Baltimore Project, for months, has been investigating the Baltimore City School Police Department, adding money paid to the city’s director of schools and Dunbar’s football coach, Lawrence Smith.
Through a public records request, The Baltimore Project received Smith’s overtime records and found that between May 2020 and August 2021, Smith filed 331 overtime forms, totaling 2,136 overtime hours on the Lord Baltimore Hotel’s Covid site. $32. 83 per hour, in time and a half, which adds up to about $105,000. But was Smith in the hotel running all those hours?
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In January, Project Baltimore reported in a Facebook live video from August 6, 2021. In the video, Smith is seen driving a boat on the Chesapeake Bay that day at 6:24 p. m. But Smith’s bureaucracy means he worked at the Lord Baltimore Hotel. from four in the afternoon to midnight.
Project Baltimore uncovered other examples where Smith’s overtime bureaucracy claims he’s running at the Covid 19 testing site’s “Lord Baltimore Hotel,” but his own Facebook posts show he holding virtual football meetings at the same time.
In September, Smith was charged through the U. S. Department of Justice with 15 similar crimes of fraudulently obtaining more than $215,000 in overtime and tax evasion. If convicted, Smith faces decades in prison.
In the indictment, the DOJ claims Smith was reimbursed for overtime “he didn’t work,” which included “COVID testing sites. “The indictment claims that in addition to working, Smith did things like “socialize” or “coach soccer. “
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If Smith filed overtime bureaucracy for a total of 2136 hours at the Lord Baltimore Hotel, between May 2020 and August 2021, that means he worked approximately 4. 5 hours of overtime per day, each and every day, for 16 consecutive months. That sounds like a lot. But apparently, that’s not enough to make inquiries to municipal schools, which continued to approve and pay overtime. Remember, Smith earned $105,000 in overtime at the Lord Baltimore Hotel alone. So the question now is: is he the only one?
To find out, the Baltimore Project filed a public records request with city schools, asking how many overtime city school officials were paid for their paintings at the Lord Baltimore Hotel Covid. The Baltimore Project also asked for a list of the names of the agents Painted at the hotel.
Fox45 News knows that the school formula paid those officials for overtime and that the city intended to use the federal aid budget to reimburse the district. Therefore, the Baltimore Project also requested the full amount “submitted to the City of Baltimore for reimbursement. “
Project Baltimore filed the request last July and didn’t get a response until late September. The city’s schools did not provide any of the documents requested through Fox45 News, saying they were “still assessing the impact of ongoing investigations,” adding that of “Lawrence Smith. “