Backlog

The state Board of Physicians has a serious backlog of complaints and a growing timeline for resolving it, according to a newly released legislative audit of the agency charged with protecting the public from bad doctors. It also isn't keeping complete records and its actions lack transparency, sometimes in violation of open meetings laws, the review says. The review comes ahead of the General Assembly session in January, when lawmakers are to consider reauthorizing the medical board, which expires under a "sunset" provision.

Baltimore City Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young is absolutely right that the city's school buildings are badly outdated and that the city is not doing nearly enough to reduce the backlog of maintenance problems, estimated at some $2.8 billion. As children are sent home because their non-air-conditioned schools are too hot to provide a conducive learning environment, he has picked a good time to remind the city that the poor state of school facilities has a real effect on academic achievement.

Baltimore Circuit Judge David W. Young cheerfully volunteered his holiday chore list — picking up the turkey, raking the leaves, washing the good china — to those in the courtroom while waiting for a defendant to be brought in for trial. The man wasn't transported from jail that morning as scheduled, the kind of mistake that usually leads to a postponement. But Tuesday was an exception. The judicial bench had declared a moratorium on deferrals as part of a three-day effort dubbed the "Misdemeanor Blast.

The problem: A temporarily patched hole in Lauraville grows larger as time passes. The back story: After at least six calls to 311 within five months about a hole that opened near a storm drain in the 2600 block of Goodwood Road, Anna L. Brown was fed up. A small gap appeared between the concrete alley and the road in the spring, and Brown saw it every day as she drove down the residential street leading out of her neighborhood....

Maryland officials announced Friday the arrests of more than 250 suspects through the use of a DNA database previously backlogged with more than 24,000 samples. Since 2007, Gov. Martin O'Malley said, the state has significantly decreased the backlog of DNA that had not been entered into the state's database. State officials say 267 arrests have been made since those samples were entered into the system. At a news conference with Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III and other city and state leaders, O'Malley said 28 of those arrests have led to convictions, including four life sentences.

Tira Jones can recognize desperation in a caller's tone. When she was an unemployed single mother in need of a financial boost, her voice used to sound the same way. Now, in her full-time job processing online applications for food stamps for the state of Maryland, she is willing to share her story with other families looking for assistance — and put them at ease. "I've learned to have patience in dealing with things because I have a lot of empathy for people," Jones said.

Your article of March 15, "State further behind handling food stamps, medical benefits" does not convey the sense of urgency the Department of Human Resources has placed on processing applications and eliminating backlogs or the progress we have made as a result. We have always been forthcoming with our efforts to address what we consider a major issue for those who depend on food stamp and medical assistance support. Long before the December 10, 2009 ruling by Circuit Court Judge Barry Williams, the department had developed and begun implementing a plan to move us in the right direction.

Three months after a judge ordered the state to speed up delivery of food stamps and medical benefits to low-income Maryland residents, the problem has worsened, court filings show. At the end of January, the state's Department of Human Resources was operating at an 81 percent compliance rate processing those requests, down 2.5 percentage points from the previous month, according to papers filed in Baltimore Circuit Court. Lawyers for the plaintiffs say the decline shows that the state - which faces a year-end deadline to improve services - continues to struggle.

More than a year after an internal audit highlighted widespread deficiencies within the Baltimore Police Department's crime lab, the division has a backlog of thousands of analysis requests. The problem has forced city prosecutors to drop or postpone cases - including the high-profile trial of serial drunken driver Thomas Meighan Jr., accused of killing a Johns Hopkins University student in a hit-and-run. And it could get worse. New regulatory requirements are coming that will place more demands on an already stressed lab. The holdups mean "justice suffers," along with victims, the community and defendants, who "deserve to be tried in a speedy fashion," said Baltimore State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy.

It's been a busy year so far at Powell Recovery Center in Upper Fells Point. About 40 new clients have walked into the drug treatment center since the state expanded substance-abuse coverage for low-income Maryland residents Jan. 1. State officials hope that getting more addicts into treatment will ease a major backlog, especially in Baltimore. While some centers worry that the expansion will prove burdensome, Powell Recovery's president sees only an upside: He predicts his center will be able to serve more than 2,000 drug users this year, up from 1,500 last year.