Contract

The Baltimore County school system has hired a local architecture firm to help document its long-term school facilities needs, following a similar strategy the city school system used to generate a $2.4 billion plan and secure some of that funding from the General Assembly. The county school board entered into a $500,000 contract with GWWO Inc./Architects last month to help take an inventory of the second-oldest school infrastructure in the state. The county's school buildings suffer from overcrowding and a lack of air conditioning, and its overall needs are estimated to be at least $1.7 billion.

Kweisi Mfume was named the new chair of Morgan State University's Board of Regents on Tuesday, more than three months after his predecessor was ousted amid a public battle over university leadership. Mfume quickly signaled that university President David J. Wilson, whose contract was at the center of the board's upheaval in the last several months, will continue on at the university with the board's full support. Mfume, a university alumnus, longtime board member, former member of the Baltimore City Council and the U.S. House of Representatives and past president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, will take over the position July 1 from the interim chair, Martin Resnick.

Aramark warned state regulators that it will lay off about 200 dining-service workers in Baltimore as a result of a lost contract, the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation said Tuesday. The 202-job cut will come when Aramark's educational services arm shuts down its location at the Johns Hopkins University on June 30, the company said in its warning notice. Aramark, based in Philadelphia, could not immediately be reached for comment. When dining-service contracts change from one company to another, the new contractor often hires many of the workers who had been employed by the previous provider.

The state agency charged with overseeing Maryland's public school construction projects was found to have lacked proper monitoring of contracts, projects and maintenance inspections, according to a legislative audit. The audit, released Friday, examined the fiscal and managerial operations of the Interagency Committee on School Construction (IAC) primarily in fiscal year 2011, when the agency approved 355 district-level contracts totaling $566 million - $249 million of which was state funding.

Baltimore officials are refusing to pay the city's former speed and red-light camera operator $2 million for its final three months of work, a period that preceded the troubled start for the new contractor in January. The city stopped issuing tickets from the cameras for weeks because of the rocky transition from the old vendor, Xerox State and Local Solutions, to Brekford Corp. Xerox says it's owed money for services provided in October, November and December, according to Solicitor George Nilson, the city's chief lawyer.

Following a two-month impasse, the Baltimore City school board voted Tuesday to extend a one-year contract to the operators of Baltimore Talent Development High School. The school board voted unanimously, with one recusal, to allow the Center for Social Organization of Schools at the Johns Hopkins University to operate the school for one more year, during which the district will monitor its progress. In January, after a months-long review of more than two dozen schools with external operators, city schools CEO Andres Alonso recommended severing ties with the school's operator at the end of the school year and slating the school for closure in 2014.

The Ravens have finalized a one-year contract with veteran quarterback Caleb Hanie, according to a league source. Hanie is in Baltimore today and will immediately join the Ravens' offseason conditioning program. The Ravens later announced the deal. In Hanie, the Ravens have added another quarterback for training camp and provided Tyrod Taylor with competition for the backup job. "He's a talented guy," Ravens coach John Harbaugh said. "He's played in games and maybe hasn't been in the ideal situation for him yet. Based on the evaluation of our pro personnel department and our coaches, they felt like he fit us pretty well.

As federal agencies pull back on spending, 7Delta's strategy is thinking big. The Columbia information technology firm, which grew by focusing on work for one federal agency, is going after larger contracts and broadening its reach. It's a diversification tactic that other federal contractors at the smaller end of the scale are trying, too: expansion in a time of retrenchment. Deltek, a Virginia IT firm that provides services to government contractors and other businesses, is seeing that trend - but warns that it cuts both ways.

I've always liked to get work done in short, aggressive bursts. From term papers in high school to cleaning the apartment last Saturday - I'll wait, wait, wait and then with head down and eyes narrowed, blitz all that needs to get done in one fell swoop. When moving to Baltimore, Sam and I looked at 15 apartments in two days. We were practically delirious when we signed our current lease, so I count us fortunate to have made a good choice. Shopping for a wedding venue was not much different: one Saturday, four locations.

The city's Board of Estimates on Wednesday formally approved an overhaul of the city's speed cameras and the replacement of a police-towing company accused of overcharging customers. The panel voted 4-1 to approve a $2.2 million payment to Brekford Corp., the city's new speed camera vendor, for a purchase of 72 speed cameras. In January, the city's speed and red light camera system experienced a near-complete shutdown during what city officials called a problematic transition from previous contractor, Xerox State & Local Solutions.