BALTIMORE (WBFF) — Baltimore City Public Schools, despite a now $1.8 billion budget, remains the lowest performing district in Maryland.
Yet, a FOX45 News investigation found many City Schools employees continue to receive large pay increases. And some residents are tired of it.
Evie Harris is a Baltimore City Public Schools graduate, an Army veteran, and a co-host of the YouTube talk show, Pop & Politics. She’s also a mother, who used to send her child to Baltimore City Public Schools.
34% of all employees in the school system now earn six-figure salaries (WBFF)
But Harris pulled her daughter out of her elementary school, about nine years ago, because of a math assignment.
Harris was outraged, “My child comes home to tell me that the math teacher had them write a letter to the governor to request a raise on behalf of the teachers’ union. You had my child write a letter to give you a raise on your behalf. This was a math class. This wasn’t even an English class.”
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At that moment, Harris said she enrolled her child in private school because she felt the district was more concerned about funding than learning. And the latest numbers coming out of City Schools, she believes, further support that.
“Our system, particularly in Baltimore City in this case, is failing our children and they are being rewarded for it,” said Harris.
Project Baltimore analyzed the just-released Baltimore City Schools employee salary database.
In 2025, according to the employee database, City Schools had 12,836 employees, an increase of more than 300 employees from two years earlier, in 2023, from 12,529.
Of those 2025 employees, 56 earned $200,000 or more. That number more than doubled from two years prior when 23 school employees earned at least $200,000. To put that amount of money into perspective, the Governor of Maryland earns $192,000.
The database also shows there are now nearly 500 City School employees who now earn at least $150,000 a year. That number has nearly tripled since 2023, when 172 employees earned that amount.
But the biggest jump came from employees earning $100,000 or more a year. In 2025, 4,400 City Schools employees earned $100,000 or more – 34% of all employees in the school system now earn six-figure salaries – up from 19% just two years ago.
“Just hearing those raw numbers, I don’t even know if anger would capture the feelings that it stirs in me,” remarked Harris.
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School salaries are increasing as City Schools continue to be the lowest performing school system in Maryland. According to the Maryland State Department of Education, Baltimore City has the state’s lowest graduation rate, lowest attendance rate, lowest average SAT score and lowest rate of English proficiency. At the same time, City Schools has Maryland’s highest dropout rate and the highest rate of chronic absenteeism.
“I find that so indefensible,” Harris said. “I find that so condescending to taxpayers. So the students fail, fail downward, fail out of the system while the administrators and teachers fail up.”
In a statement, City Schools explained the district has shown academic progress including, “three consecutive years of attendance rate increases”, “the highest kindergarten readiness scores among providers in the city” and that “English Language Arts scores have nearly doubled since Dr. Santelises’ tenure began in 2016.”
“They’re not being taught the basics. I’ve talked to young people who are not able to speak in complete sentences. They don’t know what a subject verb is or the subject verb agreement. I see people, young people who cannot count change. What kind of life are they going to lead? They are most likely they’re going to drugs or crime in general,” explained Harris.
Follow Project Baltimore’s Chris Papst on X and Facebook. Send news tips to cjpapst@sbgtv.com
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