After receiving advice from the city?s top attorney, Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon on Friday said the controversial pension awarded to former Deputy Police Commissioner Marcus Brown is legal.
“I am convinced now, that although I believe more appropriate language could have and should have been used in requesting Mr. Brown?s exemption, that the intent and letter of the law was followed by the police commissioner,” Dixon said in a statement.
But the chairman of the Baltimore?s police and fire pension board shot back, saying the city solicitor?s opinion is “political.”
“It?s his job to keep the mayor out of trouble,” Stephan Fugate, the pension board chairman, said of City Solicitor George Nilson. “I don?t know what he could have found to somehow justify false information. It?s kind of mind-boggling, and I suspect it?s more political than factual.”
A $55,529 annual pension approved for Brown, an ally of Gov. Martin O?Malley, has been the subject of heated debate, because Brown had not completed the 20 years of service generally needed to receive a pension from the system.
In a Jan. 29 letter obtained by The Examiner, Police Commissioner Leonard Hamm told Brown he notified pension officials of Brown?s “layoff” from the department effective March 29 ? which would allow him to receive the pension. But three days earlier, Brown had accepted a job in the O?Malley administration as the chief of the Maryland Transportation Authority Police, leading many to accuse Hamm of lying to the pension board.
Dixon?s spokesman, Anthony McCarthy, said the mayor “does not believe that any intentional misrepresentation was done.”
In his opinion, Nilson wrote that Brown?s contract did not require Hamm fire the high-ranking officer for Brown to receive the approximately $2 million lifetime pension.
“There is nothing in the language of the law or the agreement that would prevent the commissioner from withdrawing Brown?s appointment because Brown wants to take another position,” Nilson wrote. “The law gives the discretion to the commissioner to withdraw the appointment for any reason or for no reason.”
Nilson wrote that Hamm should not have told the pension board that Brown was “laid off” ? because he left voluntarily ? and calledHamm?s letter “poorly drafted.”
But Fugate said Hamm should have simply “told the truth.”
“This is becoming comical and frustrating,” he said. “Brown is not entitled to a pension from the Fire and Police Retirement System. But he?s being treated like he won the lottery.”
