As budget hearings continue in Baltimore, leaders from the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement faced hours of questions from members of the City Council Monday night as sustainability concerns were hashed out.
Shantay Jackson, outgoing executive director of MONSE, fielded questions along with her staff about the expanding payroll of the public safety agency, long-term funding plans for the various programs being piloted and implemented, and what the future looks like as Jackson prepares to leave City Hall at the end of June.
According to the budget presentation, MONSE currently has 45 budgeted positions; 19 of them are funded through the American Rescue Plan Act, which to some members of the city council – including Council President Nick Mosby and others – raised concerns about what will happen to the staff once the ARPA dollars run dry at the end of budget year 2025.
Councilman Eric Costello, chair of the budget hearing, asked how large MONSE is anticipated to grow, noting last year there were about 33 positions within the agency. Jackson and City Administrator Faith Leach said it’s hard to specifically say how large MONSE could become, but said the current buildout is where all the services are being provided adequately.
Costello noted that Jackson currently makes $223,000 annually, and when she started in 2021 with the newly created agency, her salary was $195,000.
“At some point, we have to have a real discussion about growth and about sustainability of salaries in this office,” Costello said after the hearing.
During the presentation, several questions were asked about the success of the Group Violence Reduction Strategy, or GVRS; Baltimore’s attempt to disrupt group, or gang, violence in the city by offering participants an off ramp to their life of crime. The program was piloted in the Western Police District originally and the city is currently expanding the efforts to other areas.
However, several concerns were raised about the pull of resources GVRS has become on an already-strained Baltimore Police Department and how successful the program really is as it expands.
“We started off the hearing taking about a 25.4% reduction in violence, and the reality is, there’s a 21% increase in homicides in the Western District,” Costello said after the hearing, noting his frustration with the way the data was portrayed during the hearing by Jackson and other Scott Administration officials.
“To suggest that GVRS is the panacea to fix all these problems, I think, is missing the mark,” he added, especially when GVRS is often touted as evidence that policies are working.
Beyond GVRS, the city agency also oversees the Safe Streets Program. Safe Streets is Baltimore’s flagship gun-violence prevention program; there are 10 different locations scattered around the city with two different non-profits overseeing the management: Catholic Charities and LifeBridge Health.
It was in late summer 2022 when Mayor Brandon Scott announced the patchwork of eight different non-profits managing the 10 Safe Streets locations would change, migrating management to the two instead.
Crystal Miller, deputy director of the community-violence ecosystem within MONSE, said moving the management away from several entities to more consolidation has made communication and hiring easier.
Safe Street hires various employees to serve as site directors, managers and violence interrupters. Much information about who those employees are is kept secret from the public. Mayor Scott and his team insist on keeping the names of the violence interrupters private for security purposes.
Throughout a multi-year investigation into Safe Streets, FOX45 News has uncovered several former employees of the gun-violence prevention program had been involved in criminal activity.
There have also been questions about accountability, transparency and the efficacy of Safe Streets. Currently, contracts between the city and the non-profits are approved annually by the Baltimore Board of Estimates, which is the city’s pending board. However, Jackson revealed during the budgeting hearing that the agency will soon move toward multi-year contracts for Safe Streets.
Following the hearing, Jackson refused to stop and answer questions about the multi-year Safe Streets contracts or how concerns about efficacy might be addressed in the new model.
As for transparency, Jackson was quick to mention her departure date at the end of June. Jackson said a transition paper or memo is nearly completed and she wants to help with the transition for whoever is selected to lead MONSE next. City Administrator Leach said an interim director would likely be named, though she didn’t say specifically who it may be, and the goal is to have a permanent director in place within 60 days.
Compared to some other budget hearings, Jackson did not face many hostile questions, though the hearing lasted nearly three hours. Ultimately, Costello said it’s still too early in the budgeting process to determine if the council will exercise its new authority in cutting and shifting money around within the budget.
“I have some real concerns,” Costello said.
The final budget must be approved by June 26, 2023.
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