Annual Report

The Harford County Department of the Treasury announced it has been awarded the Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting by the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada, or GOFA, for its comprehensive annual financial report for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2010. According to GFOA, the certificate is the highest form of recognition in the area of governmental accounting and financial reporting, and its attainment represents a significant accomplishment by a government and its management.

A former Naval Academy instructor who is accused of sexually assaulting a female midshipman will be court-martialed, an academy spokeswoman said Thursday. Marine Corps Maj. Mark A. Thompson, a former history instructor at the academy, is accused of assaulting the midshipman in his Annapolis apartment following the annual croquet match between the academy and St. John's College in 2011. Adm. Michael H. Miller, the academy's superintendent, referred the case to a general court-martial after reviewing information from a preliminary hearing that concluded this month in Washington, spokeswoman Jenny Erickson said.

For a second year in a row, the BWI Business Partnership has won a "Mercury" for the design and content of its 1994 annual report, "Spirit of Success Soars."The award was given by MerComm Inc., an independent organization based in New York that sponsors competitions for public relations firms.Last year, the BWI partnership, a nonprofit association of employers in Baltimore-Washington International Airport's business district, captured an award for its monthly newsletter, Growth in Motion.

Maryland's teacher preparation programs remain lackluster as the state continues to fall short in standards that would attract candidates with strong academic backgrounds, and ensuring that teachers are properly qualified to teach in their subject areas, according to a report published Wednesday by the National Council on Teacher Quality. The Council, a leading policy group that advocates policies for strengthening the teaching profession, issued the state's teacher preparation policies a grade of D+- --the same grade it received last year-- which mirrors the national average for all states in 2012.

With troubling financial returns from the recession still rolling in, more U.S. companies are chickening out in their 1992 annual reports.The number of firms not running a financial highlights page, generally considered a report's first-read and most important feature because it spotlights performance, has increased from 10 percent in 1991 to 14 percent in 1992."

eChapman.com Inc., the Internet financial services company started by Baltimore broker Nathan A. Chapman Jr., told federal securities regulators yesterday that its annual report would be filed late because of "unexpected turnover in its accounting department." eChapman, which filed the notification with the Securities and Exchange Commission after the stock market closed, said the company was "unable to complete its financial statements in a timely fashion." "Unfortunately," the company said in a statement, "eChapman.

Investigations into charges of fraud, waste and unethical behavior saved Baltimore nearly $1.6 million over the last year, the city's inspector general said in a report issued Monday. That's nearly three times the $538,615 annual budget of the six-employee office, which was created in 2005 to root out corruption in government and help city agencies cut costs, Inspector General David McClintock said in the annual report. It is also a record in savings since the office was established, McClintock said, and more than eight times the figure of $187,000 the office reported saving taxpayers in 2009-2010.

The 1990 annual report published by the Schmoke administration has the look of a campaign brochure. It's slick, brimming with praise for city government and filled with pictures of happy Baltimoreans doing things like eating crabs and watching the Tour De Trump.Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, who is running for re-election this year, said yesterday the report captures the essence of a well-run administration, and is not campaign fluff.The city is printing 50,000 copies and mailing them to city employees and community leaders.

WASHINGTON -- It doesn't amount to a constitutional ruling, but Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist has declared that the 20th century will not be over for another year. Still, he may not be so sure. In the chief justice's annual report, released today, he begins by referring to the past century, then adds: "which, I hasten to point out, has another year to run." The Constitution, of course, says nothing about that. And Rehnquist cited no other legal authority. Rather, he found his source in the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey."

Baltimore has made progress on some of the worst problems facing companies in the central financial district, according to an annual assessment by a local business group, the Downtown Partnership. The local business group's annual report doesn't dwell on the loss of jobs and revenue due to the economic slump. But, officials acknowledge, the core business district still faces parking shortages, a lack of retail stores, unused and unfit buildings, uncollected trash and a perception of high crime.

Many consumers are aware that the big three credit reporting agencies - TransUnion, Experian and Equifax - maintain credit files on us and that we are entitled to a free copy of our report annually. But what's less known is that there are many other national specialty consumer reporting companies that collect data on us, and they, too, must provide a free report annually to us. These companies track such things as our employment, medical payments, tenant history and insurance claims.

Travelers gripe about having to remove shoes while going through airport security or undergoing full-body pat-downs. But imagine being the Transportation Security Administration screener who has to deal with thousands of grumpy passengers daily or must rummage through strangers' dirty underwear to look for items that could blow up a plane. It is not surprising that TSA employees rank among the federal workers who are least content with their jobs. Some of the most satisfied employees year-in, year-out work at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, according to the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit that encourages careers in government.

Education Week released its annual report on graduation rates Friday and Montgomery, Baltimore and Anne Arundel counties rank high on a list of the 50 largest districts in the nation for 2009. Montgomery has a graduation rate of 87 percent, the best in the nation for large systems. Baltimore County came in fourth and Anne Arundel was ranked sixth. Baltimore City came in  47th with a graduation rate of 50 percent.  Howard County's school system is not large enough to be in the top 50. Education Week calculates the graduation rate differently from the state, and so the numbers are not always consistent with what school system's report each year to Maryland school officials.

Baltimore's air is healthier to breathe than it used to be, but the region still has some of the nation's worst smog and soot pollution, according to the American Lung Association. In its annual report on the state of the nation's air, the advocacy group says the greater Baltimore-Washington region had nearly 41 fewer days of high ozone levels during 2010, the most recent year for which verified federal air-quality data are available. But the region still had the 13th most bad smog days out of 277 metropolitan areas across the country.

Heavy spring rains, a hot summer and two major storms caused the Chesapeake Bay's overall health to worsen last year, scientists said Tuesday, though there apparently was a slight improvement in the Baltimore area's Patapsco and Back rivers, long considered among the bay's most degraded tributaries. The beleaguered bay saw its ecological grade slip from a C- in 2010 to D+ last year in an annual report card drawn up by the University of Maryland and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Violence is on the rise at a handful of Maryland's juvenile detention facilities. Staff members at the Victor Cullen Center used handcuffs to restrain youths nearly 200 times in 2011, up from 36 times in 2010. At Cheltenham Youth Facility, riots and other "group disturbances" took place 65 times in 2011, up from a dozen times in 2010. All of this information was readily available in a routine report on a state website, and helped lead to The Baltimore Sun's look this weekend at issues in the state Department of Juvenile Services . The document was filed under Gov. Martin O'Malley's StateStat program.

Development in Howard County is experiencing a mild rebound after hitting a historic low last year, suggesting the worst of the recession might be over, according to an annual government report that tracks building activity in the county. Only 1,163 new residences were completed in the year ending Sept. 30, 2009, the lowest number since 1982, according to the recently completed Development Monitoring Report. But the number of issued building permits increased, and continued to climb in the final quarter of 2009, after the reporting period ended, planners said.

Tens of thousands of Marylanders set to enroll in health plans over the next few weeks have a useful measure: health regulators' second annual report card comparing the 13 major HMOs operating in the state.Consumers can check the report card, issued yesterday, to see how well the plans did on scheduling appointments, giving checkups for new moms, even how much doctors listen to patients.For the second year, smaller, local health plans tended to get higher marks than national insurers with larger, but loose, doctor networks.

Gee, what country am I living in, as Jay Hancock 's recent column points out ("$9.5 million to Bechtel: O'Malley had no choice," Oct. 25). I had thought, extortion, blackmail, and bribery were illegal in the U.S. A few years ago, Marriott played Maryland officials for suckers with a handout. Earlier this year, the state and Baltimore County felt it necessary to "loan" a million-plus dollars to Stanley, Black, and Decker which reported $935 million in cash in its 2010 annual report.