BALTIMORE (WBFF) — Getting specific details about where Baltimore’s federal Covid-19 money will be spent remains a challenge, despite Mayor Brandon Scott touting the city’s data dashboard.
 

Baltimore City received $641 million in total from the American Rescue Plan; the Covid-19 bailout package from Congress. Mayor Scott announced $50 million would be invested in community violence prevention programs, with $22 million set aside for gun violence prevention efforts, like Safe Streets.
 

But specific information about how programs will utilize their chunk of the funding remains unclear. FOX45 News questioned Mayor Brandon Scott about the apparent lack of detail on the city’s dashboard detailing where the money is spent and how it’s allocated.
 

“It will be consistently be updated,” Scott said, noting once the money is allocated to various programs, the details would be included.
 

But it’s unclear once programs, like Safe Streets, get the money if the details about where – like on salaries or programming – will be included. Currently, that information is not available.
 

“Just knowing which organizations are receiving the money is not enough,” said David Williams, president of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance. “There needs to be more detail because these organizations are going to spend it on projects and programs, and the taxpayers deserve that information, that specific information to make sure the money isn’t wasted, to make sure the money goes to those in need.”
 

Mayor Scott doubled down on the city’s decision to invest more money into Safe Streets, despite three violence interrupters getting murdered within a year of each other while on the job and the effectiveness remains inconclusive, according to a FOX45 News analysis.
 

Sean Kennedy, a visiting fellow with the Maryland Public Policy Institute, said the city should spend the one-time funding elsewhere, especially given the prevalent violence problem in Baltimore.
 

“Instead of spending it on the criminal justice system, we’re going to spend it on do-gooders wandering around in T-shirts telling us that they are stopping violence,” Kennedy said. “Until Safe Streets can prove that it works, it makes no sense for city taxpayers, state taxpayers and federal taxpayers, or for that matter private donors, to give another dollar to Safe Streets.”
 

By law, the city must have all the money allocated by the end of 2024.