The data compiled in “Contracted Out” was provided by all of the 24 public school districts in Maryland. The data provides records of vendors that receive payments of $25,000 or more during a fiscal year from a board of education in the state. Chapter 541 of the Acts of 2019 requires each county school board must annually report (1) the name of a payee receiving a payment; (2) the location of a payee by postal zip code; (3) the amount of a payment; and 4) for the Baltimore County Board of Education, the purpose for the payment and whether the payee is a minority business enterprise.
The bill defines a “payee” as any party who receives an aggregate payment of $25,000 in a fiscal year from a school board.
A “payee” does not include:
- A public school employee’s compensation;
- A public school retiree and his or her retirement allowance;
- In Baltimore County, a third-party payee that accepts specified employee payroll-related payments.
While most of that data was published on the state’s Open Data Portal, huge chunks of it were missing until students at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism, led by Lecturer Jerry Zremski, demanded it. Other students worked with Derek Willis, Merrill College’s lecturer in computational and data journalism, to clean up and standardize the data so that each vendor was listed under the same name.
All questions in regard to this data should be directed to the Maryland Department of Budget and Management or the individual boards of education.