Waste of the Day: Alleged Thief Hired at Maryland School

Topline: An English teacher at a public school in Maryland is still collecting a full-time salary from taxpayers while awaiting sentencing after he pleaded guilty to stealing overtime pay from a previous employer.

Why does any school district in Maryland continue to reward a thief?

Dr. Lawrence E. Smith was charged with 15 felonies in 2023, but Harford County Schools ignored the allegations and hired him anyway in December 2024, according to FOX45’s Project Baltimore. He pleaded guilty to wire fraud and tax evasion on Oct. 17.

Key facts: Smith worked as a police officer at Baltimore City Public Schools for 22 years.

Once he was put in charge of monitoring overtime earnings for police officers, he became one of the school district’s top earners. Smith collected $287,271 in overtime from 2020 to 2023, according to Open the Books’ database. His $94,484 in overtime in 2021 was nearly $30,000 more than any of the district’s other 10,712 employees.

Smith was arrested in 2023 after an investigation by the Maryland Inspector General for Education found that he had lied about 3,300 of his work hours over a span of three years. He later admitted in court that he was often at home, on his boat or on vacation while claiming to be on the clock. 

Inexplicably, after resigning from Baltimore, Smith was hired as a substitute teacher at Harford County in December 2024. He became a full-time eighth grade teacher in August.

The school district placed Smith on paid administrative leave shortly after his conviction in U.S. district court this October. He is still earning his full $58,000 salary, according to Project Baltimore.

That’s when he was hired, but why keep him on?

In a statement to Project Baltimore, the school district said Smith was hired because he “completed all necessary background checks; at that time, Dr. Smith had not been convicted of a felony or charged with any crimes against children.”

Background: Despite having enough money to pay criminals, Harford County Schools was forced to cut 167 staff positions earlier this year to cover a budget shortfall.

Superintendent Sean Bulson made $319,000 last year, almost $100,000 more than anyone else in the district.

It’s unclear how many other employees the school has on paid leave, as such information is usually not easily accessible in Maryland.

While Open the Books has never requested paid leave data from Harford County, the Baltimore school district has consistently denied open records requests for its paid leave numbers by citing a “personnel exemption” in the Maryland Public Information Act.

Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com. 

Summary: Schools are supposed to teach children that crime doesn’t pay, but that is a hard task when their teacher is an alleged felon.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.

This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.