Maryland
Maryland has reported high child fatalities for years. Now they say they’ve overreported – WTOP News
In recent years, Maryland has reported notably high child fatalities related to mistreatment and abuse — well above the national average. But state officials now say that Maryland has been reporting incorrect numbers for the last five years, and the number is far lower than initially reported.
This article was republished with permission from WTOP’s news partners at Maryland Matters. Sign up for Maryland Matters’ free email subscription today.
In recent years, Maryland has reported notably high child fatalities related to mistreatment and abuse — well above the national average. But state officials now say that Maryland has been reporting incorrect numbers for the last five years, and the number is far lower than initially reported.
“It was really just us not checking our homework and not double-checking our work,” said Alger Studstill Jr., the executive director of the Social Services Administration in the Maryland Department of Human Services.
“Our highest priority in this work is to ensure that children across the state of Maryland are safe and well,” he said. “We’ve been working with national consultants to look at how we are reviewing our child maltreatment fatalities, but also looking at our data to ensure that these types of reporting errors don’t happen again.”
Studstill said that “one fatality is one too many,” and the department will be incorporating the new data into future efforts to improve child welfare services in the state.
Meanwhile, advocates and child welfare experts say the time it took to investigate the Maryland’s soaring child fatalities is indicative of the lack of attention the issue gets.
Emily Putnam-Hornstein, with the School of Social Work at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the organization Lives Cut Short, hopes that the corrected data can serve as a “wake-up call” for states to pay closer attention to the issue.
“I don’t think Maryland is alone in not having a great handle on exactly what these maltreatment fatality counts consist of,” she said. “If we’re trying to prevent them (child maltreatment fatalities), we have to know exactly what we’re trying to prevent.
“These data matter so much from a public health and prevention standpoint. That’s why I would love to see not just corrected numbers but to see much more transparency and disclosure of the specifics of the deaths that occurred, not just in Maryland but all over the states,” Putnam-Hornstein said.
The child maltreatment fatality update is part of a data overhaul for the department that was spurred by recent reporting in the Baltimore Banner that pushed the problem of child fatalities to the forefront for state officials.
“Once we were made aware of the problem, we got to work to address it,” Studstill said.
Every year, states report information on child maltreatment to the federal Children’s Bureau, overseen by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which get published in the annual Child Maltreatment report.
The most recent report, in January, published data from 2023. That year, Maryland reported to federal officials that 83 children had died due to maltreatment, resulting in a rate of 6.09 fatalities per 100,000 children from birth to 17 years old. The national rate was 2.73 fatalities per 100,000 that same year, when just under 2,000 children died due to maltreatment.
But Studstill said it appears the department included any case in its report where a maltreatment investigation was opened, not just those where maltreatment, neglect or abuse were confirmed. As a result, the state overreported deaths for 2023, when it now says there were 47 deaths.
“They (the federal agency) are looking for child fatalities where there was child maltreatment that was ‘indicated’ — meaning that the fatality was a direct result of abuse or neglect,” Studstill said in a recent interview. “What Maryland has done previously is we’ve been reporting all fatalities.”
“We operate an abuse hotline, so whenever we receive a call, we have screening-in criteria that we will review,” he said. “If the fatality is alleged to have been caused by a parent or caregiver, then we screen that report in.”
Studstill said the 83 cases reported in 2023 were “all of the cases that got screened in,” while the corrected 47 cases are those where “there was an indicated finding – meaning that the fatality was a result of neglect or abuse by a caregiver.”
The department now believes the 285 fatalities it reported from 2020 to 2023 were actually 173 — with 30 in 2020 instead of the reported 50; 56 in 2021 instead of 84; and 40 instead of the reported 68 in 2022. It asked the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services last month to correct the data. The letter to HHS said some of the inaccuracies resulted from the state transitioning to a new data system to report child welfare cases, and “are as a result of not conducting validation or reconciliation.”
The state said that of the lower number of deaths where neglect or abuse was indicated, a “significant portion of child fatalities during this period resulted from co-sleeping, unsafe sleep, infant/toddler drug ingestion, suicide and drowning.”
While national data for 2024 won’t be available until next year, state officials say Maryland will report 46 child fatalities in the next edition of Child Maltreatment.
“Every preventable death is a tragedy. It is particularly tragic when that death occurs at the hands of a parent,” Putnam-Hornstein said. “When I read the letters and the statements that were circulated in terms of how these errors occurred, as someone who works with data, I totally understand how this could have happened.”
‘Collective failure’
Putnam-Hornstein and other social services experts say that despite the lower reported fatalities in the state, there is still work to be done to improve child welfare and reduce the number of child deaths overall.
“I think the good news from the public standpoint is we now know what baseline we are working from, as we try to protect more children and prevent more fatalities,” Putnam-Hornstein said. “I continue to think that there’s tremendous room for improvement in how we investigate potential child maltreatment fatalities … and then what we do with that information to try to improve system coordination.”
Richard Barth, professor at the University of Maryland School of Social Work, said the corrected data is not necessarily a comfort to those in his field, as he believes there are issues with the national reporting system at large.
“I don’t think any of us feel that the numbers we have really represent the risks to kids,” Barth said, noting that there are often few differences between child fatalities where abuse and maltreatment is indicated and those where the mistreatment is unsubstantiated or ruled out.
Barth says that the new data is “a good wake-up call” for the state to bolster data on kids in the welfare system to better understand the factors that lead up to child mistreatment fatalities.
“Families that are involved in child welfare are often involved for quite some time,” he said. “The more that we know about the accumulating risks for them, the better.”
Putnam-Hornstein agreed.
“Hopefully this is a wake up call that will lead to improvements in data collection, not just in Maryland but other states. And hopefully corresponding improvements in how our systems respond to child safety concerns,” she said.
Putnam-Hornstein said the data collection issues are “arguably a collective failure on the part of many of us.”
“I could argue that researchers should have been looking at that data and asking questions of Maryland and other states, sooner. I could argue that if the federal government is collecting that data and publishing data … one would presumably hope that there’d be some additional policies done and some questions raised,” she said.
“And then of course, most locally, one would hope that Maryland would have been looking closely at those trends and the comparisons across states,” she said.
Maryland
Road condition, traffic congestion in Md. costs drivers thousands, report finds – WTOP News
A new report by the transportation nonprofit TRIPS found the condition of the roads in Maryland’s D.C. suburbs is costing residents over $3,500 annually.
A new report found the condition of the roads in Maryland’s D.C. suburbs is costing residents over $3,500 annually.
This includes increased wear and tear on vehicles as well as depreciation, wasted fuel, wasted time and the cost of traffic accidents.
Rocky Moretti is the director of development and research at TRIP, a national transportation research nonprofit. During a news conference Wednesday, he said the average driver in Maryland’s D.C. suburbs is spending an additional 90 hours per year stuck in traffic and wasting an additional 26 gallons of gas.
Statewide, 30% of Maryland roads are in “poor” condition, which Moretti said is significantly higher than the national average. The D.C. suburbs fare somewhat better, with 27% in poor condition, according to TRIP. Another 24% of Maryland’s roads in D.C. suburbs are rated in “mediocre” condition, compared with 21% statewide, the report found.
“I’m sad to say, you know, a lot of that stuff just rings true with me. For a long time, I was a local commissioner back about 20 years ago, in the early 2000s. And we were constantly wrestling with the need to put more money in our traffic infrastructure and just struggling to find the funding for that, as we saw state and federal dollars continue to drop,” said Jim Kercheval, executive director of the greater Hagerstown committee.
The report said the federal transportation program that was last reauthorized in 2021 was a significant boost to Maryland, increasing federal funding for roadways by 29%. Highway construction inflation since that bill was passed, however, has increased 47%. At the same time, the state is seeing decreasing revenues from gas taxes because of electric and more fuel efficient vehicles.
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Ocean City’s 2026 calendar packed with fun events. Here’s the schedule
Ocean City, Maryland, has announced a big event lineup for 2026. Here’s a closer look at what music festival, car shows and more are to come.
The Delmarva Peninsula is no strange to Irish heritage and history.
Now, ahead of St. Patrick’s Day on March 17, 2026, here’s a closer look at just how that rich Irish history has shaped Delmarva and one of its most popular resort towns.
Irish immigrants helped shape Maryland infrastructure
The state of Maryland, in particular, has deep historical ties to Irish immigrants.
According to the Delmarva Irish-American Club, thousands of Irish immigrants arrived through the Port of Baltimore seeking refuge amid the Irish Potato Famine during the 1840s and 1850s. Together, the immigrants built railroads, dug canals, and formed tight-knit communities in areas such as Locust Point and Fell’s Point in Baltimore.
Irish immigrants also played a big part in early American infrastructure in Maryland.
Throughout the 19th century, countless Irish immigrants helped construct portions of the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) Railroad, the oldest railroad ever to be built in the United States. Even Delmarva Irish-American Club Vice President John R. O’Brien’s great grandfather was a stone mason on the second half of the Washington Monument.
In what ways does Ocean City celebrate Irish culture?
Ocean City, Maryland’s first ever St. Patrick’s Day Parade took place in 1980. Since then, the parade and accompanying festival have grown into one of the Eastern Shore’s biggest St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.
Following the influx of Irish immigration during the 1840s and 1850s, many individuals of Irish descent began to settle throughout Maryland and the Mid-Atlantic region. Now, that heritage is reflected in local organizations, churches, music traditions and community-wide events such as Ocean City’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
This year’s St. Patrick’s Day celebration will take place on Saturday, March 14, 2026. The procession will begin at noon at 57th Street on Coastal Highway, marching south to the 45th Street Shopping Center.
How can people honor their Irish heritage at home?
There are many ways people of all ages can honor their Irish heritage and history alongside friends and family at home.
A few Irish-centered activities include:
- Listening to traditional Irish folk music
- Baking Irish soda bread or stew
- Learning about family genealogy
- Reading Irish literature and mythology
- Sharing Irish stories and folklore with children
- Decorating with Celtic symbols and shamrocks
Fun Irish phrases such as “Sláinte” (meaning cheers or good health), “Céad míle fáilte” (meaning a hundred thousand welcomes), and the Irish blessing “May the road rise to meet you,” can also be incorporated into daily vocabulary.
What is the Delmarva Irish-American Club?
The Delmarva Irish-American Club was founded in 1980 by a small group of friends with the vision of celebrating the Feast Day of St. Patrick, the Patron Saint of Ireland, with a grand parade.
The club’s first membership drive resulted in 75 members. Today, there are nearly 300. The club is open to anyone who is Irish, of Irish descent, or likes all things Irish, Delmarva Now previously reported.
The Delmarva Irish-American Club — a 501(c)(3) social organization — is an all-volunteer, local charity that works year-round to celebrate and preserve Irish history and culture on the Eastern Shore.
“Our goal is to celebrate Irish heritage and share those traditions with the broader community while keeping them alive for the next generation,” Vice President John R. O’Brien shared.
The club is largely responsible for the Ocean City’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade, and also supports Irish music, dance and cultural events throughout the year. To learn more, visit www.delmarvairish.org.
Olivia Minzola covers communities on the Lower Shore. Contact her with tips and story ideas at ominzola@delmarvanow.com.
Parents who’ve lost their children to fentanyl overdoses went to Annapolis, Maryland Tuesday in search of accountability.
They want a new law that would hold drug dealers accountable when someone dies from an overdose. Their efforts have met strong opposition in the past, so this year, lawmakers are making changes.
Isis Flores held photos of her 16-year-old son, Yader, who died from a fentanyl overdose.
The Montgomery County mom pleaded with lawmakers to pass legislation that would hold drug dealers accountable when someone dies from an overdose.
“A mother who lost a child in 2022 to this horrible drug,” she said. “This is something horrible and that a child passed through — my son was one of them.”
Scott Broadfoot Sr. spoke through tears about his 21-year-old son, Scottie, who also died from an overdose. While prosecutors say there was a suspect in his son’s death, the person could not be charged under current Maryland law.
“Losing Scottie is a devastation unlike any other,” Broadfoot said. “The pain that follows, his passing, is something our family carries every day.”
These families are supporting a bill that would make distribution of heroin or fentanyl causing serious bodily injury or death a felony in Maryland. Supporters say it’s needed to hold people accountable for overdose deaths.
“We can’t bring these brothers, sisters, moms, dads back,” said Maryland Del. Chris Tomlinson, who represents Carroll and Frederick Counties. “But we can take this small step to keep this poison off the streets and hold drug dealers accountable for selling a lethal product that results in death of those we cherish the most.”
This is the third year in a row this legislation has been introduced, but because of the opposition, supporters have made changes. They’re hoping those changes will make a difference in getting it passed this year.
Among the concerns from opponents is the bill could punish those struggling with addiction who need help and treatment they won’t get through the prison system.
The biggest change supporters made to the bill is that a suspect must have a prior drug manufacturing or distribution conviction in order to face this new felony charge.
Supporters say dozens of other states already have similar laws.
“It is time that House Bill 1386, that this bill be passed so Maryland can join the vast majority of jurisdictions that already see the dangers of fentanyl and already have drug-induced homicide laws” said Stuart Welch with the Harford County State’s Attorney’s Office.
In previous years, the bill has not come up for a vote. Supporters say they’ll keep coming back until the bill passes.
“How many lives must we lose?” Broadfoot said.
The maximum sentence for anyone convicted under this new law – if it passes – would be 20 years in prison.
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