In November 2025, the Prince George’s County Council voted to appoint David Murray as their Council Administrator. The council then voted “to authorize the Chair to negotiate the terms of employment, including compensation, benefits, and duties of the Council Administrator position with David Murray” (meeting minutes from November 10, 2025). Murray’s longtime friend Edward Burroughs III was chair at the time. Following that negotiation, Murray received an offer of an annual salary of $240,000 for a position beginning January 5, 2026. A table of compensation and fringe benefit payments obtained by the News Review show a vehicle allowance of $599 every two weeks and pension and supplemental retirement payments that total $1,683.69 every two weeks, among other benefits.
The Appointment
As we reported in the January 15, 2026 issue, Councilmembers Burroughs, Krystal Oriadha, Tom Dernoga, Wanika Fisher, Ingrid Watson, Shayla Adams-Stafford, Wala Blegay, Jolene Ivey and Calvin Hawkins all voted in favor of Murray’s appointment. Councilmember Eric Olson was the lone vote against the appointment, while Councilmember Sydney Harrison abstained. A motion was then made by Burroughs, to authorize the chair (himself) to negotiate the contract and Burroughs, Dernoga, Fisher, Watson, Adams-Stafford, Blegay, Ivey and Hawkins then voted in favor. Olson, Oriadha and Harrison abstained. None of the abstainees responded to the News Review’s requests to share their rationale.
Some of those conducting the vote on Murray’s appointment are longtime allies of Murray.
Connections to Adams-Stafford
Councilmember Adams-Stafford served with Murray on the Board of Education. She was a member of the board that, as a whole, was accused by the Office of Integrity and Compliance (OIC) investigation of failing to hold Murray accountable for violating attendance policies and failing to request his removal “based on willful neglect of duty” (OIC Advisory Summary and Investigative Findings on Missing PGCPS Board Member, November 4, 2024). Murray’s mother, Jacqueline Murray, served as Adams-Stafford’s campaign treasurer in 2025. At Adams-Stafford’s swearing-in ceremony for county council on June 17, 2025, Murray gave remarks. Burroughs introduced the tributes saying, “There will be a special tribute from the guys. This is a group chat that was started years ago,” before calling up Murray, current school board member Phelton Moss and Larry Stafford, CEO of Progressive Maryland and husband of Adams-Stafford. Stafford has been a strong supporter of Murray’s political campaigns.
“We came to know you through our brother Larry,” said Murray, appearing to speak on behalf of the group. “You have become part of our family and a sister,” he told Adams-Stafford, a few months before she’d vote on his appointment.
In November 2024, after Murray abandoned his bid for re-election to the Board of Education, he transferred $6,000 out of the Friends for David Murray account and sent it to Friends of Shayla Adams-Stafford.
Connections to Burroughs
Burroughs and Murray have been friends since they were teenagers, attended the University of Maryland, Baltimore County together and both ran for seats on Prince George’s County Board of Education at the same time, in 2012 (Burroughs was elected and Murray was not), eventually serving together for a period.
In a public social media post on August 11, 2021, Murray wrote to Burroughs, “They don’t understand how far we go back lol. And we’re just getting started. Love you bro.” It was accompanied by six photos of the pair spending time together, seemingly as teenagers. One photo is dated March 20, 2010, and the others are undated. Their public social media posts to each other go back at least as far as 2007, when they were in high school. In 2007, Burroughs posted photos of a young Murray with the caption, “Blood Brother.” That year the two participated in Maryland Leadership Workshops at Washington College and in 2009 they traveled together as part of the Maryland Association of Student Councils. Oriadha, current chair of Prince George’s County Council, who voted to appoint Murray but abstained from the vote to allow Burroughs to negotiate his contract, said of the pair, “You two are friendship goals all day” in a Facebook post in 2021.
Financial ties are difficult to trace given the presence of PACs and in-kind payments but in 2021 Murray’s political campaign account donated $6,000 to Friends of Edward Burroughs.
The Employment Offer
In an offer letter dated December 23, 2025, Murray was offered the position of Council Administrator with an annual salary of $240,000. That represents a 20 percent increase over the salary offered to Jennifer Jenkins three years earlier in December 2022. Compensation and fringe records show Murray’s starting rate was higher than Jenkins was receiving months earlier after years of direct experience in the role. The position posting for the Council Administrator provided to the News Review calls for a master’s degree in Public Administration, Urban Planning or related fields and extensive experience in highly responsible positions in governmental affairs or related activities. Murray’s background consisted of his service on the Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS) Board of Education, that ended in resignation, and under two years as Chief Academic Officer with the Ferguson-Florissant (Mo.) school district, where his title appeared to have changed to Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction by August 2025. At the start of the 2025-2026 school year Murray was not in the organizational chart alongside the Chief Finance and Operations Officer, Chief of Staff and Chief Human Resources Officer but instead one of five executive directors reporting to the superintendent. In Missouri, Murray’s salary as chief academic officer was $163,583. Murray’s LinkedIn profile states he earned a master’s degree in literacy from the University of Central Arkansas in December 2023.
Records reviewed by the Greenbelt News Review show Murray began being paid for full-time hours in Prince George’s County in December, prior to his offer letter, receiving payment for 80 hours of work on December 13, though he did not resign from his position in Missouri until January, according to a representative the News Review reached by phone. According to his offer letter and employment contract his appointment in Prince George’s County didn’t begin until January 5, 2026.
The Contract
Ramon Gonzalez, legislative attorney for Prince George’s County Council, told the News Review that Murray’s predecessor, Jenkins, did not have an employment contract, though she was in the position for two and a half years, so it is not possible to directly compare the contracts of the two. Murray’s employment contract, obtained by the Greenbelt News Review via a Public Information Act (PIA) request, shows the position classified as Grade 41 and benefits include cost of living adjustments, merit increases, health insurance, retirement and pension. Under termination and severance, the contract notes the position is at-will and may be terminated with or without cause, without notice. If Murray is terminated without cause, he will be entitled to one year’s salary according to the contract.
Gonzalez told the News Review there were no documents responsive to our request for a summary of fringe benefits for Murray, so we don’t know how much holiday or sick leave he accrues annually, for example. However, our PIA request yielded a spreadsheet of compensation and benefits amounts to Murray and Jenkins. These records show Murray began being paid in the County Administrator role on December 13, 2025, when he received $9,230.77 for 80 hours of work, placing his start date on December 1, 2025, over a month before his contract start date and before his offer letter. On December 13 the county also paid $572.31 in Social Security tax for the position, $133.85 in Medicare tax, $900 for a pension, $783.69 for supplemental retirement and 29 cents for life insurance. Murray was paid for his first day (eight hours) of sick leave on January 10 at a rate of $923.08 for the day and his first day of holiday leave on January 13 at the same rate. By comparison, in 2025, at her highest rate of pay, Jenkins was receiving $874.20 for any eight hours of leave to Murray’s $923.08. In 2025 Jenkins received a vehicle allowance of $532.15 every two weeks to Murray’s $599 of allowance. Where Jenkins received $737.83 in pension per two-week pay period, Murray is receiving $900 and in supplemental retirement payments Jenkins received $761.42 to Murray’s $783.69.
The News Review’s PIA
Government agencies have discretion to waive PIA fees if the information is in the public interest. Requests from media are frequently treated as such. The News Review has in the past received waivers of fees for its PIAs to the Prince George’s County Fire Department and PGCPS. In addition, the State of Maryland requires that the first two hours of costs associated with a PIA are waived for every request.
Prince George’s County Council did not grant the News Review’s request for a fee waiver to obtain the employment contracts and benefits for the current and most recent Council Administrator. Our initial request for the two contracts, benefits and related correspondence came back with an estimated six hours of staff time to produce them. By limiting our request to only the contracts and benefits, without correspondence, we were told it took a total of three hours at a rate of $38.08 and half an hour of legal review at $65.66 for a total of $147.07. After the State mandated two hours free of charge the News Review was charged $57.12 in fees by Prince George’s County Council to obtain the documents reviewed for this article.
