Watchdog Calls for Baltimore Reforms Following Release of IG Annual Report

For Immediate Release                       Contact: Courtney Mattison (202-525-7492) 

August 16, 2021                          

WASHINGTON, D.C. –  Today, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) urged Baltimore city leadership to embrace long-overdue fiscal reforms following the release of the Inspector General’s (IG) annual report identifying $7 million in spending waste. In comparison, the 2020 report outlined $3 million in identified savings. The report’s release comes as the IG continues to be embroiled in governance disputes with the municipal government, which has consistently spent beyond its means in recent years. Ethical and fiscal concerns are rife as the report notes that, “[c]ity employees and citizens made over 700 calls to the OIG hotline and the Investigations team delivered 36 reports.” Despite the breakneck pace of the IG’s work, Baltimore city leadership has bizarrely called for curtailing the government watchdog’s independence.

TPA President David Williams emphasized the need for spending control, stating, “The latest Annual Report is further proof that the IG should remain independent and not politicized as some leaders in Baltimore want to do. With a budget of $2.3 million, the IG identified $7 million in potential savings.  That is a savings of $3 for every dollar spent, an impressive return. Baltimore public officials have repeatedly promised their constituents that new city leadership would get Baltimore back on track and offer a better and brighter future for Charm City. But, if the IG’s 2021 annual report is any indication, the city has a long way to go to get past decades of deteriorating trust between leadership and the public. Seldom reported-on city offices such as the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts (BOPA) regularly fail to oversee operations, costing taxpayers millions of dollars cumulatively in wasted funds. For example, BOPA’s failure to exercise oversight over their vertical banner program cost taxpayers $450,000. Banners hanging on city-owned light poles that should have been taken down in February 2020 were still hanging in September 2020, resulting in significant missed revenue opportunities for the city. Clearly something has to change when the city can’t even take down banners on time.”

Williams continued: “Things would certainly be far worse in Charm City were it not for the principled leadership of IG Isabel Cumming. From her days as an Assistant State Prosecutor with the Maryland State Prosecutor’s Office, she helped take down former Comptroller Jacqueline McLean.  As the IG she investigated the infamous former Mayor Catherine Pugh. As soon as Cumming assumed the role of IG in 2018, she made clear that, ‘nobody is off limits. Overtime situations, theft of time. Purchase cards. There are so many areas that need to be looked at…I love going after white collar criminals.’ Baltimore city taxpayers desperately need that tenacity in going after waste, fraud and abuse.”

Williams concluded: “Unfortunately, Baltimore city public officials have tried their best to undermine the IG’s independence and set up an advisory board that would monitor the watchdog’s every move. Baltimore’s leadership needs to let the IG do her job and continue to make Charm City a better place.”

#

Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to educating the public through the research, analysis and dissemination of information on the government’s effects on the economy.