Maryland taxpayers foot $365,000 salary for Baltimore administrators implicated in school grading scandal Print this article An apology from the Baltimore City School Board president and its CEO this week over allegations a high school passed hundreds of failing students seemed to hit all the right notes. But a deeper dive shows that even though the administrators admitted they knew about the grading irregularities at Augusta Fells Savage Institute of Visual Arts two years ago and replaced the principal, she continued to collect a six-figure salary paid in full by Maryland taxpayers. According to online records, Tracy Hicks, who had been the principal of the West Baltimore school for nearly a decade, retired this January. However, she collected a paycheck for 17 months after allegations of grading irregularities and truancy cover-ups surfaced.