BALTIMORE (WBFF) — A clash is brewing at City Hall over the Baltimore Children and Youth Fund (BCYF), a taxpayer backed nonprofit that received $16 million for fiscal year 2026.
Six City Council members introduced a bill Monday to impose new oversight and transparency rules, setting them against Mayor Brandon Scott, who has voiced his opposition.
“This is basic accountability,” Councilman Mark Conway, one of the bill’s cosponsors, told Spotlight on Maryland. “When you’re using tax dollars in any way, shape or form, you want to make sure that there’s some oversight. You want to make sure you’re getting your bang for your buck.”
Here are some key aspects of the bill and fight to update oversight of BCYF amid a series of transparency and financial concerns investigated by Spotlight on Maryland over the past year.
Auditing
BCYF is almost exclusively funded by Baltimore City taxpayer dollars and is guaranteed funding each year. However, it’s not subject to regular performance audits like city agencies.
The bill proposed Monday would require BCYF to undergo a performance audit from the Baltimore City Comptroller next fiscal year and every three years after.
The legislation is sponsored by Mark Parker (District 1) and John Bullock (District 9), with Council President Zeke Cohen, Ryan Dorsey (District 3), Conway (District 4) and Zac Blanchard (District 11) signed on as cosponsors.
City Council last passed BCYF regulations in 2020.
Former Mayor Bernard “Jack” Young, who led efforts to launch BCYF a decade ago, said this year that he was “unhappy” with how the nonprofit is operating.
“Everything is in place except for the city doing its job and auditing the fund,” Young told Spotlight on Maryland in July. “I’ve called councilmembers and asked them to do an amendment to the charter to say that they have to have yearly audits by the comptroller’s office.”
Conflicts of interest
The bill prevents BCYF from sending grant money to organizations whose board or staff includes one of BCYF’s employees, board members or family members.
Spotlight on Maryland reported last year on how BCYF sent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to an organization run by one of its board members, Lisa Molock. BCYF said last year that Molock recused herself from board votes that involved her organization.
Molock’s organization, Let’s Thrive Baltimore, continued to receive BCYF grants this year. She was listed as a voting member of BCYF’s board on the 2025 grant slate that included her organization. However, BCYF and Molock told Spotlight on Maryland that she is no longer on the board and was mistakenly listed on the 2025 meeting minutes.
The regulation on board ties with BCYF grantees may limit the Baltimore City government in leveraging the nonprofit’s funds. BCYF is required to include on its board a designee of the City Council president and the director of the Mayor’s Office of Children and Family Success.
Mayor says bill has ‘issues’
Mayor Scott announced his opposition to the BCYF bill Thursday on WYPR radio.
“The bill as it stands right now has issues for me,” the mayor said. “For example, as proposed, the bill will prevent programs like YouthWorks, which BCYF supported 2,000 YouthWorks jobs this summer, would be prohibited from receiving funding.”
The Baltimore City fiscal year budget sent $16 million tax dollars to BCYF, about $7 million of which the nonprofit then sent to the Mayor’s Office of Employment Development (MOED) for its initiatives such as YouthWorks, which provides paid jobs for teens and adolescents.
‘Guarding’ intent of BCYF
John Brothers, the former president of T Rowe Price Foundations and co-chair of BCYF’s task force in 2017, said this week that the bill needs to ensure BCYF can only send grants to grassroots organizations as he originally designed it.
“This is not the first time the Baltimore government has knocked on BCYF’s door to seek funding because they are having a budget challenge, and I suspect it won’t be the last,” Brothers, who said he worked with City Council on the bill, told Spotlight on Maryland. “The City Council can push their thumb in the side of the city to not do this because they should be guarding the spirit and original intent of why BCYF was developed.”
The regulation may also limit BCYF from sending money to the Summer Funding Collaborative (SFC) program as it has in recent years. SFC vets youth programs for funding opportunities from private and public sources. Spotlight on Maryland previously reported on how BCYF President Alysia Lee serves on the board of Baltimore’s Promise, which manages SFC.
Limits on grantmaking
The bill includes three limits on the size of grants sent to local organizations:
A single BCYF grant may not exceed 20% of the total funds from the organization in a fiscal year. This likely would have limited the about $7 million sent to MOED in fiscal year 2025.
The BCYF president’s fund, which is controlled by Lee, may not exceed 10% of the dispersed grants in a fiscal year. Lee previously used the fund to give money to Baltimore’s Promise, where she serves on the board, as well as to Let’s Thrive Baltimore, which at the time was run by a BCYF board member.
And a single BCYF grant may not exceed 100% of the organization’s expenditures from the previous fiscal year or the average of the past three fiscal years.
‘This bill jeopardizes that work’
BCYF provided a statement on its opposition to the bill on Tuesday.
“Every day, BCYF is lifting up our local Black and Brown led organizations through grants and leadership training, which in turn has created an ecosystem where our youth are supported, safe, and given opportunities to work, grow, and lead our communities. We are hopeful that this important and impactful work will be allowed to continue to thrive. This bill jeopardizes that work,” a BCYF spokesman told Spotlight on Maryland.
“It’s important to note that only 15% of BCYF’s funds are allocated for administrative costs, where 80% go to grant-making and 5% to community engagement. Financial oversight and conflict of interest prevention are all aspects entirely written into our existing Memorandum of Understanding, and we strictly adhere to those guidelines,” the BCYF spokesman continued.
When asked what aspects of the bill jeopardize BCYF, the spokesman did not respond.
BCYF’s nonprofit tax forms from recent years show it spent about 60% of its taxpayer money on grants to local charities. The remaining 40% was used for administrative expenses.
Conway said BCYF should see the bill as an opportunity for growth.
“This is not an attack, but this is us saying that there needs to be more accountability in how this fund is used because we do need it to succeed,” the councilman told Spotlight on Maryland. “We do need this for our young people and we want them to do better. We’re just not sure that that’s quite happening right now.”
Spotlight on Maryland is a joint venture by FOX45 News, The Baltimore Sun and WJLA in Washington, D.C. Have a news tip? Contact Patrick Hauf at pjhauf@sbgtv.com and @PatrickHauf on X.
