Working together across the aisle for a better Maryland

Last summer, the citizens of Maryland learned from The Baltimore Sun’s reporting that the former executive director of the Maryland Environmental Service (MES) spent lavishly in his tenure and ultimately negotiated a significant payout when he left to become the governor’s chief of staff that summer. This at a “not-for-profit business unit of the state of Maryland,” according to the MES website. The spending raised many questions about the organization’s oversight and whether officials were abusing its resources for personal gain rather than in alignment with the organization’s public mission to “provide operational and technical services to protect and enhance the environment for the benefit of the people of Maryland.”