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Police Accountability Board asks for case‑management funding; committee targets duplicative trial board items and special counsel budget
Summary
Police Accountability Board staff sought funding for dashboard automation and a case management system. Committee staff identified two duplicative trial‑board compensation items and proposed trimming special counsel funds by $100,000 (to be tranch ed), and the committee agreed to recommended reductions.
Forrest Gilman Riley, administrative director for Montgomery County’s Police Accountability Board (PAB) and Administrative Charging Committee (ACC), briefed the Public Safety Committee on April 23 on the PAB’s FY26 NDA (non‑departmental account). The county executive recommended roughly $891,000 for the PAB NDA (including the ACC), an increase of about $103,000 (13%) driven primarily by compensation and modest technology support.
Why it matters: PAB leadership said a fully functional case management system and public dashboards are essential to meeting the board’s accountability and transparency mandates. “We are currently reviewing with TEBS an outside vendor product that appears to comprehensively fit our needs and also would interface directly with systems that are already in place at the Montgomery County Department of Police,” Gilman Riley said. The vendor product under review would provide a public portal and integrated case management that could exchange data with MCPD and other departments.
Committee staff findings and recommended reductions: Council staff flagged two items that appear duplicative in the FY26 base: increased trial board member compensation and trial board member training (together about $39,500). Staff recommended removing those duplicative amounts. Staff also recommended reducing the special counsel allocation from the FY25 added amount ($200,000) by $100,000 to $150,000 (with committee members agreeing to consider tranches of $50,000) after reviewing FY24‑FY25 expenditure history and projected needs; the PAB had spent roughly $120,000 in the prior 12‑month period and had previously exceeded a smaller initial allocation.
On complaint intake and data quality: The PAB said it has implemented interim steps to provide greater granularity in public reporting (breaking allegations down to the allegation level), but board staff acknowledged challenges in consistent classification of complaint narratives. Gilman Riley said the PAB is engaging the Maryland Police Training and Standards Commission and other counties to learn best practices for classification and reporting.
Security and storage: The PAB requested $6,400 for secure Azure storage for sensitive investigative files; staff also identified a $15,000 request for dashboard automation. The committee and PAB discussed whether the budget should more closely align special counsel funding with recent expenditure patterns and whether improved technology should be prioritized.
What the committee did: Committee members accepted staff’s recommendation to remove duplicative trial board compensation items and to reduce special counsel funding by $100,000 (to be handled in two tranches of $50,000). The committee recorded agreement to the reductions and asked the PAB to continue work on case management options and data classification guidance.
Ending: The committee approved staff recommendations for adjustments to the PAB NDA and asked for follow‑up on the complaint intake interface and on the timeline and cost for a full case management system.
