Baltimore schools cut ties with ex-commissioner’s company after FBI search

Baltimore City Public Schools is severing ties with a company owned by a former school board member, days after FBI agents searched the company’s building and Mujahid Muhammad resigned from his board seat.

KEYS Development TA LLC earned $98,500 as a vendor providing mental health services for students from 2024 to 2026, while Muhammad was a school board member, district invoices show. Mayor Brandon Scott appointed Muhammad to the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners in 2023.

The business relationship is under review by a school system ethics panel, according to Tina Hike-Hubbard, chief of communications for the system.

“City schools is in the process of terminating its agreement with KEYS Development,” Hike-Hubbard wrote Friday in response to a public records request from The Banner seeking district contracts with KEYS.

Muhammad resigned from the school board Wednesday, hours after the FBI searched the brick office building at 7501 Liberty Road that houses KEYS Empowers and KEYS Development.

Muhammad did not respond to a request for comment Sunday afternoon. The FBI has not said what it was looking for, and the agency does not typically comment on open investigations.

Even before the FBI search, the school district’s ethics panel was scrutinizing Muhammad’s financial disclosure statements, according to a source with knowledge of the school board operations.

Maryland law requires school board members to submit disclosure forms annually detailing their employment and financial interests to ensure there is no conflict of interest between a public official’s duties and their personal financial dealings.

Muhammad’s forms, obtained by The Banner through a public records request, show he initially failed to fully disclose his financial interests and employment in KEYS Development and KEYS Empowers, a nonprofit of which he is executive director, in 2023 and 2024. KEYS Empowers started doing work for the school district in 2022.

Muhammad filed amended financial disclosure statements in June 2026 to correct the record, though officials have not said whether that was done in response to an ethics panel inquiry.

KEYS’ work with Baltimore schools

The school district paid KEYS Empowers $6,050 in 2022 for organizing and running an intramural basketball league and field trips for students to the Maryland Science Center, the Baltimore Museum of Industry and the Harriet Tubman Museum.

In 2024, KEYS Development was paid $7,000 for providing services to address behavioral and attendance issues for students at ConneXions, a middle and high school in West Baltimore. The activities were to include art and music therapy. In early 2025, KEYS provided more services for the school system and was paid another $11,000.

But in June 2025 its work for city schools grew dramatically when the school board approved a three-year contract with 11 mental health agencies, including KEYS, for $7 million a year.

The agencies were to work in 131 schools to expand the mental health services available to students. The funding would come from several sources, including a $1 million grant from Behavioral Health System Baltimore, the city schools, and reimbursement from Medicaid and other health insurance companies.

The school system worked with Behavioral Health System Baltimore to solicit proposals from mental health providers and received 21 bids. The 11 chosen included Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, the University of Maryland School Mental Health Program, Catholic Charities and Sheppard Pratt, along with less well-known programs, including KEYS Development.

Hike-Hubbard’s Friday letter said Muhammad recused himself from the June 10, 2025, school board vote on the contract. A board letter announcing the contract originally said he’d voted but was corrected to reflect meeting minutes showing he abstained, Hike-Hubbard’s letter said.

Under the 2025 contract, the school system paid KEYS Development $80,000. A purchase order created on Aug. 13, 2026, would have allowed the company to be paid another $40,000 through 2027, but the school system closed that purchase order at 6:31 a.m. Friday.

The school system has “no active purchase orders with any KEYS-related entities,” Hike-Hubbard’s letter said.

According to the school district’s website, “vendors are prohibited from using the services of City Schools employees or officials (including members of the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners) in performing or providing services.” The board’s code of ethics allows for exceptions.

In a statement Sunday, Hike-Hubbard said the school system ethics panel can consider measures that mitigate conflicts of interest, including recusal from decisions that involve financial or business interests. Board and school system officials have not said whether KEYS Development was granted an exception or Muhammad agreed to such guardrails.

A statement issued Thursday by school board Chair Robert Salley and Vice Chair Ashiah Parker acknowledged Muhammad’s resignation but said “it would not be appropriate for the Board to comment further on an ongoing investigation.”

Millions in government funds

KEYS entities have received millions in taxpayer grants.

KEYS Empowers Inc. reported receiving more than $4.7 million in government funds for the 2023 and 2024 tax years, tax filings show. In 2024, the Maryland General Assembly earmarked $750,000 toward a project to build a west side building that would be a community hub. The money was never distributed, but this year the legislature earmarked another $250,000 for the project.

In a May interview, Muhammad said his nonprofit was working to open the KEYS Community Healing Village in West Baltimore by the end of next year. Though a sign at the construction site boasts a 2025 opening date, much of the parcel is still under development.

Muhammad said the village will feed the community nightly and offer educational programming for young people and families. He said the surrounding community lives in a food desert, and he aspires to eventually offer a culinary therapy program.

In April, an investigation by the Maryland inspector general for health found KEYS Empowers needed to return more than half of the $824,000 the organization was paid by the Maryland Department of Health from 2021 to 2024. The inspector general found evidence of overfunding, inadequate bookkeeping and missing documentation.

Conflicting financial disclosures

Muhammad provided conflicting information on the 2023 and 2024 financial disclosure forms. He checked a box that said he “held interests in a non-corporate business entity which did business with the board or city schools.”

But, in several other places on the same forms, he checked boxes saying he did not have “any employment or hold any office with an entity that did business with the board or city schools.” And he initialed a statement that said he was not employed by a business entity that had or is negotiating a contract with city schools.

He amended those statements this year to correct the record.

His 2025 disclosure statement, filed in March 2026, disclosed his connection to KEYS Empowers and KEYS Development.

In public, Muhammad was open about his association with KEYS entities. In company social media posts, he can be seen in photographs with an array of public officials, including state Sen. Antonio Hayes, the mayor and former Mayor Catherine Pugh, who attended KEYS events.

Banner reporters Kristen Griffith and Maya Lora contributed to this article.

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.