BALTIMORE (WBFF) — A Project Baltimore investigation is prompting serious concerns for taxpayers over how Baltimore City Schools approves overtime for police officers.
 

“That nobody raised a red flag, in and of itself, is a red flag,” said Sean Kennedy from the Maryland Public Policy Institute. “How can this happen without anyone throwing up a flare and saying, ‘hey, we have a problem here.’”
 

Kennedy is calling for an independent audit. He says what Project Baltimore uncovered is a big problem, and we need to know how big.
 

“North Avenue should be completely transparent,” Kennedy told Project Baltimore.
 

Last week, Fox45 News first reported that Lawrence Smith, a Baltimore City Schools police officer, and Dunbar’s star football coach, racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime.
 

Project Baltimore found examples of Smith logging hours at the same time he was seen in a live Facebook video driving a boat on the Chesapeake Bay. In another Facebook post, he’s out for a run with his wife in Michigan when he claimed he was working in Baltimore.
 

“This can’t go on,” said Kennedy. “The City Schools are in a safety crisis as it is. We’re having violence there on a daily basis. Police officers not showing up to work could cost lives.”
 

Baltimore City Schools CEO Dr. Sonja Santelises and School Police Chief Akil Hamm declined an interview with Project Baltimore. But we did receive this statement:
 

“City Schools is aware of the public interest in school police overtime and recent reports about alleged discrepancies. While your report highlights sensational moments to build a narrative, it is flawed because it ignores the nuance that governs how our police officers are compensated for overtime. That context includes:
 

The management and/or payment by third-party organizations - not City Schools - of specific overtime work performed. Overtime for officers is often not funded by City Schools.
 

Required minimum hours earned to support city-wide emergency investigations as outlined in the union contract.
 

The ability to work remotely, for example, if an officer supervises employee schedules for a specific event.
 

These nuances can only be gleaned from examining overtime records with the required knowledge of the overtime process for all organizations that hire City Schools police officers.”
 

The statement does not specifically address the social media videos. Was Smith working remotely while running with his wife in Michigan? And is it possible to be working at a Covid-19 site, remotely, from a boat on the Chesapeake Bay?
 

Now, Project Baltimore has uncovered more discrepancies, which may have helped Smith earn at least $218,210 in overtime since 2020, the most of any City Schools officer.
 

When an officer submits overtime hours, they write down the date, time, location and reason. Each overtime form is then given a unique tracking number. But Project Baltimore found a couple examples that appear to show Smith was paid twice for the same hours.
 

Smith submitted two overtime forms for August 25, 2020. Each shows Smith worked four hours of overtime from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Covid-19 test site at the Lord Baltimore Hotel. Both forms are signed by Lawrence Smith.
 

But the two forms have different tracking numbers. They were also submitted on different days and signed by different supervisors. According to Smith’s pay logs, which Project Baltimore obtained from City Schools, he was paid eight hours of overtime for August 25, 2020, which means Smith got paid twice for working the same four-hour shift.
 

The same thing happened on May 25, 2020. Smith signed off that he worked from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Covid-19 test site. But both forms have different tracking numbers, and they’re signed by a different supervisor. Fox45 News checked Smith’s pay log. He was paid for eight hours of overtime for May 25, 2020, even though according to the forms, he only worked four hours.
 

They're not looking deeply into what's going on with why that would be required to do so much overtime,” Kennedy told Project Baltimore.
 

In October, Project Baltimore spoke with FOP Union President Sgt. Clyde Boatwright. At the time, we only knew the amount of overtime Smith was earning and not the details of where and when he claimed to be working those extra hours.
 

We asked Boatwright if he believes there is enough oversight in the overtime system, to which he replied, “Yes, I do.”
 

Boatwright did not provide an additional statement for this story, but in October, he defended the overtime approval process.

“A few years ago, we went to a digital system, and the reason being is we wanted to ensure that we had two sets of eyes looking at the overtime ensured, and this is outside of the actual officer working,” Boatwright told Project Baltimore. “This is having a supervisor validating it and also a commander validating it.”
 

But if Smith, on at least two occasions, was paid twice for the same hours, how was this approved and why wasn’t it flagged? City Schools did not answer these questions in their statement.
 

“If North Avenue does anything short of an independent audit, they're not squaring with the public and the taxpayers and the students who are not being well-served by this,” Kennedy told Project Baltimore.
 

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