Politics

Gov. Wes Moore (D) apologized Wednesday to a Baltimore man who was wrongfully imprisoned on an erroneous murder conviction after the man was awarded more than $300,000 in compensation by the Board of Public Works. “I am deeply sorry for the fact that our justice system failed you not once, but our justice system failed you twice,” Moore said to Demetrius Smith.

Baltimore’s spending board deferred decisions on contracts for two top public safety officials Wednesday, one day before both were due to be considered for confirmation by the City Council. A $285,000 annual salary agreement with acting Police Commissioner Richard Worley and a $218,000 agreement with acting Fire Chief James Wallace were both expected to be approved by the mayor-controlled Board of Estimates.

After Maryland Gov. Wes Moore cautioned state and local officials last month about impending budget woes due to a slowing economy, many are wondering what programs will be prioritized and how the newly elected Democratic governor will keep major promises he made to the state. The upcoming “season of discipline,” as the governor called it during his August speech at the Maryland Association of Counties summer conference, raises questions for lawmakers and other Marylanders: How will the next budget negotiations look?

Maryland Department of Natural Resources leaders have undertaken sweeping reforms of the state’s park system in the wake of complaints about sexual harassment and a toxic work culture, as well as the highly publicized rape trial of a former park manager, the agency’s top official told lawmakers Wednesday. “There were legitimate workplace culture, communication and transparency issues in the park service,” Natural Resources Secretary Josh Kurtz told a joint legislative committee.

Maryland officials on Tuesday highlighted the availability of $120 million in grants for behavioral and mental health services to help K-12 students over the next year and a half. Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Baltimore Democrat, described the funding as a historic investment that is critical to the state’s 900,000 school children at a time when kids are facing the stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic’s effect on learning and socialization.

Prince George’s County Council members on Tuesday said they’d reconsider legislation to codify the ability of the body’s first pregnant representative to participate in meetings virtually, an apparent course change after a rejection of the measure prompted forceful criticism from other elected officials, labor rights groups and county residents.

Maryland’s only historically Black land-grant university has missed out on $321 million in funding over the past three decades, the Biden administration has said in a letter to Gov. Wes Moore. The University of Maryland Eastern Shore and similar institutions across 15 other states have missed out on a collective $12.6 billion over the past 30 years, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack said in letters Monday to the governors of each state. The letters said the largest disparity was in Tennessee, where Tennessee State University has been underfunded by $2.1 billion.