Support Staff

They call it the Giving Tree, a forest green, shrub-high centerpiece atop a desk at Howard Community College's Welcome and Information Center. For nearly 10 years, the tree has symbolized the Columbia school's efforts to reach out to the surrounding community during the holiday season. The tree comes courtesy of HCC's support staff — everyone from security personnel to the plant operation crew to office staff. Each year, they place it on display at the Welcome Center at the Rouse Company Foundation Student Services Hall, one of the most-visited buildings on campus.

I was volunteer and then staff chaplain at the Baltimore City Detention Center. I was terminated 2011, four months short of 16 years. The commissioner saw an inmate using the phone in my office as I was listening. This has always been a major element of my job description. Other support staff that interact with inmates do the same. One said to me he thought providing phone access was part of my job. The phones on the sections need cumbersome complex prior arrangements for payment and cannot call many locations needed.

WASHINGTON - -U.S. officials are planning to add up to 14,000 combat troops to the American force in Afghanistan by sending home support staff and underutilized soldiers and replacing them with infantry units, Pentagon officials said. The plan represents a key step in a drive to beef up U.S.-led forces as the Obama administration presses to counter Taliban gains and demonstrate progress in Afghanistan amid crumbling American public support for the war effort. Forces that could be swapped out include units assigned to noncombat roles, such as guards or lookouts or those on clerical and support duty.

City school officials said they will take extra security measures at a Southeast Baltimore charter school after five fires were set this week at the school, which also had an altercation that injured an administrator and a student arrest. Officials said they will increase the presence of school police officers and district staff at the Friendship Academy of Science and Technology Middle/High School, which they acknowledged has had "significant safety issues" this week. Among them were five trash-can fires - two Wednesday and three Thursday.

Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend gave more than $1 million yesterday to state and city prosecutors, as well as police, to crack down on gun-wielding criminals, promising "no more excuses" for violence on Baltimore streets. The funds will allow Baltimore's State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy to hire eight more prosecutors and additional support staff to focus on gun crimes. Two lawyers will also be given to the attorney general's office to track gun purchases and investigate illegal gun sales.

City school officials said they will take extra security measures at a Southeast Baltimore charter school after five fires were set this week at the school, which also had an altercation that injured an administrator and a student arrest. Officials said they will increase the presence of school police officers and district staff at the Friendship Academy of Science and Technology Middle/High School, which they acknowledged has had "significant safety issues" this week. Among them were five trash-can fires - two Wednesday and three Thursday.

I was volunteer and then staff chaplain at the Baltimore City Detention Center. I was terminated 2011, four months short of 16 years. The commissioner saw an inmate using the phone in my office as I was listening. This has always been a major element of my job description. Other support staff that interact with inmates do the same. One said to me he thought providing phone access was part of my job. The phones on the sections need cumbersome complex prior arrangements for payment and cannot call many locations needed.

Editor: Please print the following in response to last week's editorial: Let's remember what the Harford County Council's "job" is before complaining about their support staff ( The Aegis editorial, Aug 24). Their job is to pass laws and to protect their district's constituents. Harford's population has grown to such a point that each district has specific interests and concerns, and the consequence of mistakes can be large. Council members are the only officials who look out for their district's interests while reviewing and voting on county-wide laws, plans and budgets.

Baltimore State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy says that the 17 percent budget increase her agency is slated to get from the city won't be enough - and that she might be forced to lay off as many as two dozen employees. Jessamy's pleas for more money have become an annual event, but she says next year's budget is bleaker than ever because numerous state and federal grants are coming to an end in the next six months and no new aid is in sight. But a spokesman for Mayor Martin O'Malley says Jessamy is perpetuating "a fog of fiction."

Our area schools are producing top-notch students and finding new ways to stay on the cutting edge of education. Rodgers Forge Elementary and Dumbarton Middle Schools will participate in the Feb. 22nd Vertical Articulation Planning meeting. This event for teachers and support staff, in all schools in the Towson Zone, aims to help students as they transition from elementary to middle and then to high school. This transition will be accomplished by the teachers and support staff working together to develop and implement a vertically aligned program to accommodate it. Parents, who may find teens and 'tweens a bit perplexing, are invited to attend the Dumbarton Middle School PTSA's Active Parenting of Teens classes.

Our area schools are producing top-notch students and finding new ways to stay on the cutting edge of education. Rodgers Forge Elementary and Dumbarton Middle Schools will participate in the Feb. 22nd Vertical Articulation Planning meeting. This event for teachers and support staff, in all schools in the Towson Zone, aims to help students as they transition from elementary to middle and then to high school. This transition will be accomplished by the teachers and support staff working together to develop and implement a vertically aligned program to accommodate it. Parents, who may find teens and 'tweens a bit perplexing, are invited to attend the Dumbarton Middle School PTSA's Active Parenting of Teens classes.

Editor: Please print the following in response to last week's editorial: Let's remember what the Harford County Council's "job" is before complaining about their support staff ( The Aegis editorial, Aug 24). Their job is to pass laws and to protect their district's constituents. Harford's population has grown to such a point that each district has specific interests and concerns, and the consequence of mistakes can be large. Council members are the only officials who look out for their district's interests while reviewing and voting on county-wide laws, plans and budgets.

They call it the Giving Tree, a forest green, shrub-high centerpiece atop a desk at Howard Community College's Welcome and Information Center. For nearly 10 years, the tree has symbolized the Columbia school's efforts to reach out to the surrounding community during the holiday season. The tree comes courtesy of HCC's support staff — everyone from security personnel to the plant operation crew to office staff. Each year, they place it on display at the Welcome Center at the Rouse Company Foundation Student Services Hall, one of the most-visited buildings on campus.

WASHINGTON - -U.S. officials are planning to add up to 14,000 combat troops to the American force in Afghanistan by sending home support staff and underutilized soldiers and replacing them with infantry units, Pentagon officials said. The plan represents a key step in a drive to beef up U.S.-led forces as the Obama administration presses to counter Taliban gains and demonstrate progress in Afghanistan amid crumbling American public support for the war effort. Forces that could be swapped out include units assigned to noncombat roles, such as guards or lookouts or those on clerical and support duty.

Just six months after he took the bar exam, the small law firm where Justin Browne was working told him business had dropped so significantly that they were laying off almost all of its associates. With a newborn baby and a wife to care for and law school bills to pay, Browne found himself without a job. The firm, which specialized in contract, construction, consumer and commercial law, hadn't been doing so well. "Frankly, I kind of knew that this was going to happen," Browne said.

Class sizes will grow because fewer teachers will be hired to fill vacancies. Schools will be warmer in summer and cooler in winter to save on utility costs. Dozens of central office administrators will be laid off. And the system will turn to generous businesses or parent groups to pay for classroom supplies the district can no longer afford. This is the dire scenario that schools Superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell paints of a school system trying to grapple with the $1.2 billion proposed budget unveiled by County Executive John R. Leopold last week.

Brown Investment Advisory & Trust Co. said yesterday that it has hired 14 brokers and nine support staffers for its full-service brokerage, putting the 3-month-old subsidiary ahead of its ambitious schedule. In the fall, Brown launched the brokerage, Brown Advisory Securities LLC, and vowed to hire 18 brokers - plus support staff - during the year. "We are exceeding our expectations for placements at this [point] in the new year," said J. Michael Connelly, the firm's chief operating officer.

The county attorney's office is understaffed and spends considerably more money processing certain cases than it receives in return, revealed an internal audit.The audit recommended that the legal staff be increased by two attorneys, in addition to the new attorney already approved this budget year, and that the office change several procedures to reduce wasteful spending.In interviews with the four attorneys -- one county attorney and three assistants -- the County Bureau of Internal Audit found "there was a strong indication that there was inadequate time to perform job assignments properly."

Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold unveiled a relatively lean $1.2 billion operating budget for fiscal 2009, angering school officials by only partially funding pay and benefits for system employees and riling a tourism promoter by calling for an increase in the county's hotel room tax. With tax revenues from real estate sales down more than $29 million from a year ago, Leopold proposed increasing total county spending for the coming year...

The state teachers union voted late Friday night to support voter approval of slot machine gambling in a November referendum, the union announced yesterday. Maryland State Teachers Association President Clara Floyd said in a statement that the referendum would bolster education funding at a time when the state's fiscal outlook is bleak. She pointed to a proposed Education Trust Fund, which would dedicate half of the future proceeds to public schools, and licensing fees, which would be collected starting in early 2009.