Around Maryland

The Baltimore County Department of Corrections is working on an agreement with the state to send children under 18 who are charged with committing crimes as adults to a youth detention center in Baltimore City. Director of Corrections Walt Pesterfield told the Baltimore County Council during a Tuesday budget hearing that his department was working with the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services to establish a memorandum of agreement that would divert child inmates from the Baltimore County Detention Center in Towson.

The fight between the two Baltimore fourth graders — a boy and a girl — started with a crude text message the boy sent about the girl’s parents. Before long, the spat escalated into homeroom, with the girl saying the boy lived with bedbugs and cockroaches. Pulled from class, the two kids attempted to resolve their dispute with a conflict resolution technique called a “restorative circle,” where they try to talk through the disagreement.

Members of the Howard County Board of Education expressed opposition Wednesday to schools Superintendent Michael Martirano’s proposal to increase class sizes and cut more than 101 full-time equivalent staff positions to balance the public school system’s fiscal 2024 budget. The board is expected to vote on a final budget-balancing scenario next Tuesday, the day before the County Council is scheduled to adopt its fiscal 2024 capital and operating budget.

A Prince George’s County circuit judge is heading to Kenya, where he will become the first American to serve full time on a United Nations tribunal that handles employment issues for the intergovernmental organization. Judge Sean D. Wallace, who has served on the county’s circuit court since 2002, will move to Nairobi for his seven-year term on the United Nations Dispute Tribunal.

The pandemic changed the way the Greater Washington Community Foundation thought about its purpose. The 50-year-old nonprofit philanthropic organization has historically focused on meeting crises — it raised more than $10 million for a Covid-19 Emergency Response Fund and has deployed funds over the years for people in the region affected by such events as the 2008 economic crisis and federal government shutdowns.

AlphaStruxure, an Energy as a Service (EaaS) company, and Montgomery County Thursday announced an integrated microgrid infrastructure project featuring electric bus charging and on-site green hydrogen production powered by solar and battery energy storage for the county’s Equipment Maintenance and Transit Operation Center (EMTOC).

Baltimore County residents will begin paying more for their water this summer. The Baltimore City Board of Estimates on Wednesday approved a 4.9 % increase to water rates. For the average county family of four, the Baltimore County Department of Public Works and Transportation estimated the rate increase to be about $1.15 per 748 gallons of water used, which roughly amounts of an increase of about $42 quarterly or $168 annually.