Baltimore School police officer works overtime during regular shift
Baltimore MD Feb 1 2023 Project Baltimore has new developments in the investigation into overtime for Baltimore City School Police.
A City Schools police officer has racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime, some of which appears to have been earned during his regular shift.
“I was floored when I looked at your stories, frankly,” said Ed Norris, a former Baltimore City Police commissioner, who sat down with Project Baltimore to go over our findings.
We showed Norris these overtime forms for Lawrence Smith, a longtime City Schools police officer and star football coach at Dunbar High School. Since 2020, Smith has earned at least $218,210 in overtime, which is the most of any Baltimore City school officer. We filed a public records request to see his overtime forms, and what we uncovered raised a lot questions.
“For the life of me, I cannot explain how this happened,” Norris told Project Baltimore. “Unless someone just is signing anything put in front of them without looking. Or, there’s some kind of involvement or some kind of, you know, complicit behavior. I don’t know.”
Project Baltimore found examples of Smith logging hours at the same time he was seen in a live Facebook video driving a boat on the Chesapeake Bay. There were forms where it appeared he was paid twice for working the same overtime hours. And now, Project Baltimore has found examples where Smith was paid overtime while he was working his normal shift.
On June 18, 2021, Smith’s Off-Duty Appearance overtime form has a box checked, indicating he worked his normal shift from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. But Smith also logged five hours of overtime from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., which is during his normal shift.
According to Smith’s pay logs, which Project Baltimore obtained from City Schools, Smith was paid for eight hours at his normal rate, and he was paid for five hours of overtime on June 18. This means taxpayers paid Smith for his normal shift and overtime at the same time.
“I’m just stunned by this,” said Norris. “It’s one thing with his conduct, if this is intentional fraud where you’re double dipping, but my bigger question is, who is supervising this? Who’s signing these?”
The answer to Norris’s question is about the bottom of each form. Each one is signed by a commanding officer and a supervisor. The overtime form for June 18, 2021, is signed by Smith, his commanding officer Alphonso Small, and his supervisor Danaena White.
“My vision is one with a 21st Century model of cultural transparency and accountability to restore and rebuild the highest levels of public trust,” said White in a 2022 promotional video for City Schools.
Project Baltimore found six examples where it appears Smith was paid overtime during his normal shift, totaling 35.5 hours. White signed off on four of those overtime forms, including one from March 14, 2020. White approved Smith for working his normal shift of 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. And she approved eight overtime hours, which were also worked from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Fox45 News checked, Smith was paid for both.
“If it was one, I’d give them one, maybe two. You just weren’t paying attention. Somebody didn’t catch this,” Norris told Project Baltimore. “But how do you miss six of these?”
Project Baltimore reached out to multiple sources in the City Schools Police department who told us it’s not possible to work regular hours and overtime hours at the same time (WBFF)
According to City Schools policy, it seems this should not happen once. Overtime forms where officers submit their extra hours are called Off-Duty Appearance Forms, because the officer is no longer considered on duty for their regular shift. The school’s website says, ‘‘under no circumstances shall on-duty members have an Off-Duty Appearance Form certified.” But it appears that is exactly what happened here, multiple times.
Project Baltimore emailed White about these overtime forms, but she did not respond. City Schools did not agree to sit down with Project Baltimore to explain the overtime approval process, but the district did provide a statement.
The statement did not answer how an officer could be working a regular shift and overtime at the same time, but said, “For officers who work OT for a 3rd party, compensation depends on the employer, their rules, the contractual obligations with the police union and other factors.”
Project Baltimore reached out to multiple sources in the City Schools Police department who told us it’s not possible to work regular hours and overtime hours at the same time, regardless of who is paying the overtime, whether it’s City schools or a third party.
“To just not cooperate or not even give an explanation as to why, I don’t understand,” Norris told Project Baltimore. “You’ve got all kinds of trust issues with the government, in general here. So, you have kids with textbooks that are decades old, then you have potential waste. And if this is one, how many others are there, what else are we missing here?”
