April Honorees

MCP nominated their Police Communication Officers (PCO); PCS Chaconda Cheeks, PCS Lakeshia Wesby, PCO Damara Knox-Harris, PCO Tameara Blackston, PCO Mechiko Moulden, PCO Connor Coulbourn, PCO Craig Phillips, PCO Maurice Hughes, PCO Felicia Mooney, PCO April Fenner, and PCO Richard Bassett III for Caught DGS in honor of National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week. This nationally recognized week brings recognition to the public safety dispatchers who are an invaluable part of public safety in the State of Maryland.  Dispatchers are the heart of rapid response from law enforcement, fire and medical personnel during emergency situations. They are the front line of first responders and are often overlooked and unseen, yet they play a critical role in coordinating lifesaving efforts. Not only do they save the lives of our family, friends, and neighbors but, they protect the lives of first responders. The job of a PCO is demanding, stressful and difficult.  They work long hours which include days, nights, weekends and holidays. They are always available and engage in many difficult conversations.  An estimated 240 million calls are made to 9-1-1 in the U.S. each year. In many areas, 80% or more are from wireless devices. Thank you, MCP dispatchers, for your service to the citizens of the State of Maryland. You are truly appreciated!

The Multi-Service Centers are comprised of 22 Court buildings throughout the State. The administrative and fiscal duties for the facilities are supported by 11 very dedicated employees. Over the past year there have been several clerical vacancies which has left the remaining staff to jump in and pick up the slack. In November 2022, the new eMMA 2.0 was released. A few of the employees were new to DGS with just a couple months under their belts. They had to learn FMIS and eMMA quickly. The more seasoned staff helped train and assist the new employees as well as trying to grasp the new eMMA 2.0 process themselves. Nearly 300 purchase orders for the Multi-Service Centers were transferred over from FMIS to eMMA 2.0. To say that it was a tight time frame would be an understatement. The staff not only put their all into transferring the information for their own Regions, attended numerous trainings and continued to help each other along with their normal daily Regional tasks. There were many bumps in the learning process and quite different to those who worked in the FMIS system for many years. But they all pulled together as a team and continued with a great attitude during this daunting transition. That is why April Barrett, Briana Caalim, Shango Smith, Tricia Greene, Anna Caldwell, Theresa Scott, Chamya Dowd, Judy Fauntleroy, Shaquanna Allen, and Amy Mahoney have been Caught DGS. 

The Capital Accounting team of Mobolaji (BJ) Akadri, BelayMetaferia, Maxwell Tucker, and Kicheba Mhina-Dennis have been Caught Doing Great Service! The capital team is responsible for processing all of DGS’ capital project and capital grants payments. They create POs from the approved BPW agendas every two weeks and input invoices into the system for payment. The team receives dozens of payment requests each week, and must carefully evaluate each one to ensure that all the proper approvals are in place, and that each payment is made against the correct PO. The conversion to the eMMA platform has had a significant impact on the team, adding multiple approval layers to the process. The team has had to work through staffing challenges as well as an increase in their workload and they have done so very admirably.