It would be irresponsible to not spend money on the prisons we want to send our children to
Governor Larry Hogan made the tough choice to use the $68 million Maryland's legislators earmarked for education, not for education! Over $11 million of that money would have gone to Baltimore schools. Governor Hogan called that money "extra money" and put it into the state's underfunded pensions, saying it would be irresponsible not to.
The money at issue was part of about $200 million that lawmakers set aside for their top priorities — extra school funding, preventing a pay cut for state workers and paying for a range of health-care initiatives that include Medicaid coverage for more pregnant women and funding for heroin addiction.
Governor Larry Hogan made the tough choice to spend $30 million on a 60-bed jail for Baltimore teenagers who have been charged as adults!
The issue was a bigger problem before the rate of youths jailed as adults dropped in recent years. State officials said in March that the city detention center holds fewer than 20 minors on any given day. But federal investigators who reviewed the last year jail said those young offenders were sometimes kept in seclusion for a month or longer.
But don't think Larry Hogan isn't for education:
Mark Vernarelli, spokesman for the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, said that even though the number of youngsters who would use the facility has declined, "the department is committed to housing juveniles charged as adults in a new building that will include classrooms, program space, and medical and recreation areas. It's a facility that's vastly superior to the current location."
See? Governor Larry Hogan, shortening the distance in the school to prison pipeline.