When I first read The Baltimore Sun’s exposé “Baltimore City Opioid Restitution Fund plans to give $11 million to 3 delinquent nonprofits, data shows” by Carson Swick and Chevall Pryce, I nearly spilled my coffee. The Sun, to its credit, did real journalism for once: digging through public filings, One Stop data, and nonprofit tax returns to uncover a story that should outrage every taxpayer in Maryland.
Over the next three to five years, Baltimore City’s Opioid Restitution Fund plans to hand out $11 million in settlement funds to three nonprofits that are financially delinquent with the state of Maryland. You read that right, delinquent. Not in good standing. Not current on state requirements. And yet, City Hall is showering them with millions of dollars from settlements meant to fight the opioid crisis that has ravaged Baltimore’s neighborhoods for decades. The Baltimore Sun, Nov 6 2025.
According to the Sun report, the three groups, Baltimore Safe Haven, Charm City Care Connection, and Penn North Recovery, have all failed to meet basic state requirements such as filing annual audits or paying small registration fees to the Secretary of State’s office. The registration status of a fourth group, We Our Us, was labeled “not current,” which isn’t quite delinquent but still not compliant. These aren’t minor clerical hiccups. These are the very checks designed to prevent misuse of public and charitable funds.
And yet, under Mayor Brandon Scott’s administration, these same groups are slated to receive millions from settlements with pharmaceutical giants like Cardinal Health, Allergan, and Teva. The Sun revealed staggering numbers:
- Baltimore Safe Haven, an LGBTQ+ community support group, will receive $3 million. In 2023, its Executive Director earned $175,000, nearly 10 percent of the group’s total revenue.
- Charm City Care Connection is on track to receive $5 million. In 2023, its top two executives collected over $227,000 in combined salary and bonuses, despite the group posting a $97,000 loss.
- Penn North Recovery will get $3 million even though its leadership team took home over $300,000 in pay and perks last year.
This isn’t conservative conjecture; these are numbers right out of the groups’ IRS Form 990 filings and the Sun’s reporting.
What’s the City’s response? A boilerplate statement from the Mayor’s office claims that Baltimore “employed several best practices for grant administration,” including risk assessments, monthly reports, site visits, and “corrective actions if needed.” Fine words, but hollow ones. If those “best practices” had real teeth, no delinquent nonprofit would even make it past the application stage. As taxpayer advocate David Williams of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance told the Sun:
“If you are a nonprofit, and if you are not in good standing with the state, you should never have access to any taxpayer money or any settlement money, full stop.”
He’s absolutely right. Every dollar mismanaged here is a dollar stolen from real recovery from families fighting addiction, from communities in crisis.
Where is the accountability? Where is the City Council oversight committee? Baltimore City has a long, sad history of rewarding political allies with grants while the streets remain littered, schools crumble, and neighborhoods burn. It’s not an accident that the same city plagued by violent crime and corruption can’t seem to run a clean grant program.
And while we’re at it, where is The Baltimore Banner on this story? Their newsroom, supposedly the new standard-bearer of “independent journalism,” was silent. Not a word. Not a tweet. Not a whisper. Why? Could it be because the Banner has become the de facto mouthpiece for Mayor Scott and Baltimore’s entrenched Democratic political class? When corruption aligns with their ideological allies, they look the other way. But if the story had involved a Republican mayor or a conservative nonprofit, you can bet it would have been front-page outrage with moral lectures about “transparency” and “accountability.”
That’s the double standard we’ve come to expect.
Let’s be clear: this isn’t just about party politics. It’s about competence or lack thereof. The Brandon Scott administration has been defined by mismanagement: violent crime is still out of control, city schools failing despite record funding, and now millions in opioid restitution money are going to nonprofits that can’t even stay legally registered.
Baltimore deserves better. The opioid crisis destroyed lives and hollowed out entire neighborhoods. Those settlement dollars were meant to rebuild, not enrich well-connected nonprofits with sloppy books and questionable leadership.
The Sun reporters did the hard work, and they deserve real credit for exposing this. But the rest of Baltimore’s media, especially the Banner, ought to follow their lead. Journalism’s job is to challenge power, not protect it.
Mayor Scott promised accountability. Let’s see if he delivers. Or, more likely, if this story fade into the same bureaucratic black hole that swallows every other Baltimore scandal.
Because in a city where failure gets rewarded and silence gets funded, the people paying the price aren’t the politicians or the nonprofits. They’re the taxpayers. And the addicts who will never see a penny of the help they were promised.
Sources:
- Carson Swick and Chevall Pryce, “Baltimore City Opioid Restitution Fund plans to give $11 million to 3 delinquent nonprofits, data shows,” The Baltimore Sun, November 6, 2025. https://www.baltimoresun.com/2025/11/06/baltimore-opioid-restitution-fund-delinquent-nonprofits/
Carol Hughes is a contributor for Direct Line News. She can be reached at Carol.Hughes@mcgopclub.com
Direct Line News is a Maryland-based free-access publication committed to the Republican reform tradition.
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