BALTIMORE — Three members of the Kelly family, including the founder of Kelly and Associates Insurance Group, Inc., announced they would not return to the University of Maryland Medical System Board, the medical provider announced Friday.
Francis X Kelly, Jr., the founder of the family insurance company and a former state senator, as well as John R. Kelly and David E. Kelly, informed UMMS they would not return to their seats. They had voluntarily left their seats on April 2 in the midst of increasing scrutiny on the medical system and its board following the fall out from the Healthy Holly scandalthat eventually brought down Mayor Catherine Pugh.
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Pugh, who was a state senator at the time, was discovered to have negotiated $500,000 worth of contracts to sell her “Healthy Holly” children’s books to UMMS while she served on the board. As these revelations came to light, the dealings other board members had with the medical system prompted calls for further transparency from the organization. UMMS hired an outside auditing firm, Nygren Consulting, to review its contracting, disclosure, and conflict of interest policies.
The report was released earlier this week, documenting that Francis Kelly earned more than $100,000 a year from 2011 to 2018 from service provided by his insurance company to the hospital. Kelly and Associates provided employee benefits at several hospitals in the UMMS. The contracts were agreed to without going through a more typical competitive bidding process, but the report determined that the company provided services at a fair market value.
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“While more could have been done to ensure UMMS received initially in 2012, as has continued to receive in subsequent years, a fair market value for the services provided by Kelly Benefit Strategies, effort was made to ensure the price paid was fair in 2012,” the report said.
“On behalf of the School of Medicine community, I want to extend our deepest appreciation to the Kelly family for the extraordinary support they have provided to the School of Medicine,” said Dean E. Albert Reece of the University of Maryland School of Medicine. “Specifically, we want to recognize Frank Kelly for his tireless and dedicated involvement with the School of Medicine. In particular, we want to thank John Kelly for his years of dedicated service to the School of Medicine’s Board of Visitors.”
