Around Maryland

Maryland correctional officers will receive a $13 million settlement as federal and state officials continue to investigate the illegal withholding of overtime pay from thousands of public safety employees. Nearly 3,900 officers will receive the delayed wages almost three years after U.S. Department of Labor officials first contacted the state’s Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services about a federal investigation into the agency’s timekeeping practices.

Frederick County’s Transit Services reached its goal of 700,000 riders for fiscal year 2023, marking a slight bounceback from low ridership levels during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Fiscal year 2023, which ran from July 1, 2022, through the end of June, was the first since 2015 during which Transit Services of Frederick County reached its ridership target. Official numbers for the fiscal year are still being compiled, but the department met its goal by fewer than 100 riders, according to Mary Dennis, a communications manager for the transit service.

The Ride On buses in Montgomery County, Maryland, still have plenty of unoccupied seats, but ridership figures are climbing. According to Montgomery County Transportation Director Chris Conklin, ridership is at 80% of pre-pandemic levels, with Ride On service carrying 55,000 people per day. “We continue to see increases in our transit ridership each month,” Conklin said during a briefing Wednesday with Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich.

Every year in September, Tracey Malone hosts an event filled with free food, giveaways, games and music in Sandtown-Winchester in honor of her brother who was shot and killed in the West Baltimore neighborhood in 2013. Last summer, a young kid came up to her at the event and said it was the most fun he had all year. He even brought nearly two dozen other kids to enjoy the event.

The University of Maryland Baltimore Washington Medical Center received the gold level “Safe Sleep” recertification from Cribs for Kids. This is the second time the hospital has met the standard for receiving gold level certification. Ensuring hospital care teams and families have the resources to promote safe sleep practices is important as it helps reduce the risk of sudden infant death, accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed and unsafe sleep injuries for infants.

A long-stalled plan to move the Baltimore City Circuit Court out of decrepit buildings on Calvert Street to a new spot may be getting another chance after state officials attended a tour of the hulking, vacant Metro West complex. The tour included Gov. Wes Moore and Audrey J.S. Carrion, chief and administrative judge for Baltimore City Circuit Court, and signaled that the hunt for new court digs has ramped up again.

Baltimore’s acting police commissioner made a surprising admission on Monday, calling his department’s lack of presence at a large weekend gathering in South Baltimore in which 30 people were shot — two of them fatally — an intelligence failure. Though Brooklyn Day happens every year, Richard Worley said, it takes place on different weekends. If police would have known three or four days ahead of time, he said, they could have put together an operations plan.

Lori Morrow says for the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future education reform plan to work effectively, schools must ensure students receive the mental health services they need. Morrow, the mother of two children and education advocate from Prince George’s County, said school-based health centers should be created and staffed with mental health professionals accessible for students and their families, especially in rural and underserved communities.