Community Corner

Audit Faults How Domestic Violence Center Head Was Hired

The now-former executive director of the Domestic Violence Center of Howard County should have undergone a better background check, a county audit finds.

The controversial hiring of Annie Burton-Byrd to head the Domestic Violence Center of Howard County could have been avoided with a more comprehensive background check, a county audit concluded, according to the Howard County Times.

Instead, the background check was a “perfunctory” one that cost the center’s now-former board of directors $7 to have completed, the report said.

Burton-Byrd, who was hired in January, was the third executive director of the center within the past year.

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But problems soon surfaced from Burton-Byrd’s past job as program director of the Martin Luther King After-School Program in Baltimore. While there, according to the Times, she improperly used five AmeriCorps volunteers for work at her rental management and tree-trimming business. 

She had been banned from handling federal money as a result of her actions. County Executive Ken Ulman froze funding to the center in March, and the state followed suit. The center’s board members resigned in late March. Volunteers were appointed by Ulman to fill the vacancies.

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The new board placed Burton-Byrd on administrative leave, after which Ulman reinstated the center's funding, according to Howard County spokesman Kevin Enright.

Inga James has been serving as the center’s interim executive director since April 19. The center’s board wants to hire a new permanent director within the next six months, according to the Times.


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