‘Project charges’ explained: How the council is wresting control of one program to steer millions

Since taking leadership roles on Prince George’s County Council, two members have repeatedly pushed to divert millions of dollars from park and recreation funds to their preferred organizations, including one run by a close friend.

Chair Krystal Oriadha, who joined the council in 2022, has set aside about $6.5 million for Community On The Frontline, an organization run by Janna Parker, Oriadha’s friend and the godmother of her son.

District 8 council member Edward Burroughs has sought to steer a similar amount to Joan’s House, an Oxon Hill-based nonprofit.

Through Joan’s House, Burroughs has established programs in his district connecting young people to educational and professional development opportunities. One program, the Student Leadership Academy, has taken groups on trips to the White House; a Virginia mountain resort; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Chicago; Canada; and Puerto Rico.

Burroughs said he has organized and attended several of the group’s outings, including the trip to Puerto Rico.

To benefit these organizations and others, Oriadha and Burroughs have, with the support of County Executive Aisha Braveboy, tried to expand and take control of a decades-old program through which organizations and municipal governments can apply for expense reimbursements known as “project charges.”

The program relies on taxpayer funding from the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, which is governed by Prince George’s and Montgomery counties’ planning boards. The commission oversees parks and planning in both jurisdictions and recreation in Prince George’s.

County residents may recognize the commission from their property tax bills. For every $100 in assessed value, taxpayers pay 29 cents to the commission.

Council members generally recommend to the council chair the organizations in their districts that they believe should receive project charges. The council chair decides which to include in the budget, and the commission decides whether to consider their expenses for reimbursement.

During the past two budget cycles, Oriadha and Burroughs have allocated millions of dollars to select groups in a way that some say presents a conflict of interest or even self-dealing.

The latest budget, which takes effect July 1, calls for the commission to transfer more than $39 million to Braveboy’s budget office, cutting the commission out of the awards process and eliminating the requirement for recipients to submit invoices. The budget doesn’t make clear how the budget office would administer the program.

The commission is challenging the $39 million transfer in a lawsuit, alleging that the county’s budget violates state law.

Attorney Benjamin Rupert said during a hearing Wednesday in circuit court that the Braveboy administration is trying to “raid” the commission’s funds to fill the county’s budget shortfall.

A nearly 50-year-old law caps the amount of property tax revenue the county can collect. But that cap doesn’t apply to revenue collected by the commission.

Braveboy spokesperson Brian Fischer didn’t respond to multiple emails requesting clarification. During a news conference shortly after the suit was filed, Braveboy called the complaint “unnecessary” and “disruptive.”

“The project charges that were at issue, that the County Council lawfully passed, is a practice that has existed for over two decades,” she said.

Oriadha and Burroughs, who are running for reelection unopposed in Tuesday’s primary, say they’re using the program to channel investment to communities the commission has long neglected. And they take issue with the commission’s previous refusals to approve reimbursements for certain organizations.

Oriadha, Burroughs and Braveboy have defended the budget during press conferences and in interviews. They say the plan they approved isn’t unprecedented, as the commission has contended.

“What’s new is that groups in the southern part of the county, in the inner Beltway part of the county, are able to pull down resources that they otherwise, historically, have not been able to,” Burroughs said.

Others see a system of political patronage that favors those close to the council members.

“I am not sure if anything is criminal, but if what I am hearing from former colleagues is true, there’s no doubt it is grossly unlawful and a patent breach of public trusts,” said Adrian Gardner, the commission’s chief legal officer from 2000-22.

Mounting scrutiny

Council members Sydney Harrison and Jolene Ivey have requested an independent audit and a state investigation into their colleagues’ use of project charges.

“I’m really concerned about the commission and the vitality of the commission,” said Harrison, who is running for one of the two at large council seats. “And I really think it is at its most vulnerable state that it’s been in years because of the actions of this council.”

The council members on Wednesday joined Manuel Geraldo, one of four Prince George’s County Planning Board members, and members of the M-NCPPC Retirees Association for a news conference adding to the calls for an investigation.

“The state has to do something,” Geraldo said. “Investigate and have the state pass legislation and wipe out project charges.”

Darlene Douglas, president of the commission’s retirees association, sent a letter to the Office of the Attorney General and the Maryland State Prosecutor raising concerns about “blatant misappropriation and self-dealing.”

Council members have faced public scrutiny at least two more times in recent years for their use of project charges.

The county’s former inspector general reported in 2023 that the lack of a formal selection process, oversight and vetting in the program significantly increased opportunities for fraud, waste and abuse of taxpayer money, though the report did not explicitly find fraud had occurred.

State lawmakers hoped an amendment in this year’s state budget would provide additional guardrails. It prohibits the council from allocating project charges outside the annual budget process, and it states that the council cannot transfer the commission’s funds to itself.

Oriadha and Burroughs, however, continue to double down.

The county’s 2027 budget allocates millions to organizations with ties to Oriadha and Burroughs and, unlike in years past, sets aside millions of dollars for the executive branch.

Budget documents show the funds flowing to the executive would pay for “Economic Development,” an item labeled “Planning Division: County Gov’t” and a “strikeforce” team for the office of community relations, among other county programs.

Fischer, Braveboy’s spokesperson, did not respond to multiple emails seeking comment on the project charges for the administration’s programs.

The amounts budgeted for project charges have also ballooned under Burroughs and Oriadha.

The county allocated nearly $9 million for project charges in 2022.

Next year’s budget calls for more than $39 million, including more than $8 million total for Community On The Frontline and Joan’s House.

Oriadha said residents expect, when they pay their taxes, “everyone’s going to get equal services,” and they don’t want to see major investments and important programs concentrated in specific areas.

Potential conflicts

Parker, a former Prince George’s County teacher whose political interests grew after joining a teachers union, formed Community On The Frontline in 2020.

She said the organization offers services such as speaking events, food drives, meal deliveries, gift cards for groceries, general financial assistance, senior lawn care and tutoring.

Oriadha said she and Parker met about a decade ago when they were working as community advocates.

Community On The Frontline first appeared on the council’s project charges list in fiscal year 2024, months after Oriadha was elected.

The council allocated $100,000 in project charges for Community On The Frontline that year. But the organization wasn’t approved for any project charges, and council members didn’t set aside funding for the organization the following year.

Parker said Community On The Frontline had to cut programming and delay projects.

When Burroughs was council chair in fiscal year 2026, Community On The Frontline’s allocation soared to more than $2 million. Parker said she would use the money so it could function as an anchor organization that supports other groups’ work.

The organization received $925,000 in project charges that year, Parker said, though the commission did not approve them. Rather, the council repurposed $12 million from the commission’s budget intended for project charges and transferred it to the council’s administrative fund.

The council intended the funding “to be provided to non-profit organizations to offer additional recreation programs through a pilot demonstration program administered” by the council, budget documents state.

The “pilot program” occurred outside the annual budget process and prompted state lawmakers to curtail the council’s authority.

After Burroughs, the council selected Oriadha as its chair, and Community On The Frontline’s allocation jumped again, to $3.4 million under the budget the council recently passed.

Parker said she plans to add one or two staff members to her four-member team and that doing so could be contingent on getting project charges.

Oriadha worked in nonprofits before joining the council and founded a local organization called PG ChangeMakers. She denied her personal relationship with Parker posed a conflict of interest.

“So many organizations would be ineligible because I come from that space,” she said. “I don’t think they should be penalized because I know them.”

Parker also pushed back, saying, “I feel like the focus of highlighting the relationship is an attempt to undermine the work.”

A rapid expansion

Romel Williams founded Joan’s House in April 2023, state business records show. Burroughs said he began working with the organization shortly thereafter.

The council member said he met Williams years ago at an out-of-state convention and that they reconnected after Williams moved to the district Burroughs represents.

Williams later received a community college scholarship through a program Burroughs established, and the pair appeared in a 2023 Washington Post story about the program.

“A lot of people benefited from that program,” Burroughs said when asked about the connection.

Williams rescheduled an interview with The Banner and then didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.

In fiscal year 2024, the council allocated $100,000 in project charges for Joan’s House. But the organization didn’t receive any of the funds because it didn’t receive its certificate of good standing with the state Department of Assessments and Taxation in time, according to the commission.

In fiscal year 2025, the council budgeted $400,000 for Joan’s House. The organization requested and received about $143,000 in project charges, according to the commission.

With Burroughs as chair in fiscal year 2026, Joan’s House’s allocation in the budget jumped to $2 million.

The commission approved contracts to award up to that amount in project charges, but it hadn’t awarded any of the money as of this month, according to the commission.

Next year’s budget allocated $4 million for a Joan’s House youth jobs program and the Student Leadership Academy.

Joan’s House in many ways functions as an extension of Burroughs’ council office. The organization regularly promotes programs partnering with Burroughs, including the Student Leadership Academy.

He said the commission reviewed the Student Leadership Academy’s scope of work and signed off on many of the trips that have come under scrutiny.

Burroughs’ office paid for his and his chief of staff’s flights to Puerto Rico and lodging, according to billing records reviewed by The Banner.

Burroughs said establishing a “youth jobs program” through Joan’s House has long been a top priority. He said his parents, who grew up in Southeast D.C., got their first jobs with help from such a program under former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry.

“I wanted to replicate that,” he said.

A flawed system

Prince George’s County officials have for decades requested reimbursements from the parks and planning commission through the project charges program.

The practice originated during “white flight” in the 1970s, when some white families sent their children to private schools and no longer wanted their tax dollars supporting public schools.

To this end, county voters approved a charter amendment that capped the tax revenue Prince George’s County could generate from assessed property values.

Gardner, who at the time was a Glenarden resident, was bused each morning to a white junior high school in Beltsville. He said the referendum was “a pernicious backlash against court-ordered busing that desegregated county schools.”

Many officials in Prince George’s County say the Tax Reform Initiative by Marylanders referendum, commonly known as TRIM, has hindered the county government’s ability to provide services to a growing population.

County leaders, including Burroughs and Oriadha, also say the commission has been irresponsible and frivolous in its spending.

They’ve been particularly critical of the commission’s investment in a new headquarters in Largo.

“You want me to say $40 million for renovations is fine but $40 million for nonprofit organizations [and] municipalities is not? I’m never going to agree with that,” Oriadha said.

But, even as leaders of the council, Burroughs and Oriadha say they’ve struggled to get the commission to approve project charges for their preferred organizations.

“The process is so flawed because there’s too many emotions in it,” Oriadha said. “There’s staff over there that just don’t like me. They just don’t like council member Burroughs. They don’t like how hard we advocate for our districts.”

How to get a project charge

The lack of formal guidelines for project charges has raised questions about whether organizations are properly vetted.

Oriadha said that, during her time on the council, members generally have compiled project charges requests for their priority organizations for the next fiscal year and submitted them to the council chair, who then decided which to include in the budget.

Among organizations from her own district, Oriadha said, she seeks out those with which she’s familiar.

“I need to come out to your events. I need to get a feel for what your organization does,” she said.

The commission’s former inspector general, Renee Kenney, reported in 2023 a series of concerns about how council members managed the program.

Kenney found the council had, for example, awarded millions of dollars to a Christian school, which Kenney claimed is unconstitutional.

“It would be almost impossible to prevent the funds from advancing the school’s religious mission,” she said.

At the time, council members — led by Oriadha and Burroughs — largely dismissed the audit’s recommendations, which included outsourcing the program’s administration to an organization that specializes in grant management.

Ramping up

The county’s budget for fiscal year 2027, which begins July 1, is the council’s most expansive use of the project charges program over at least the past two decades.

It includes large chunks of money for executive branch functions that, according to commission attorneys, don’t appear related to parks or recreation programming, in violation of state law.

Some earmarks are strikingly vague, including $65,000 for “indoor pool white coating.”

In its suit against the county, the commission has alleged that the budget and the council resolution transferring the $39 million would “irreparably harm” the commission.

The complaint cites a 1973 case brought by the commission against the county after it sought to take control of parts of the commission.

The Supreme Court of Maryland sided with the commission, ruling the commission and its departments, including those operating only in Prince George’s, aren’t county agencies and that taxes collected for the commission cannot be considered county funds.

Oriadha, though, said the council will be fighting “for the principle that taxpayer dollars should be directed to serving the public, not expanding bureaucracy.”