Baltimore Inspector General Urges Ballot Vote on Direct Records Access

When Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming's office requested financial records from the Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, what came back were 200 mostly redacted pages. A subpoena for the full documents was ignored. And yet, working with what little was provided, Cumming's investigators still found thousands of dollars in fraudulent invoices tied to SideStep, the mayor's now-defunct youth diversion program. Her office says more fraud may be hiding in the pages that haven't been released.

That impasse set the stage Monday at City Hall, where Councilman Mark Conway introduced a charter amendment bill that would designate the Office of Inspector General as a co-custodian of city records, giving Cumming the same standing as the city's Office of Information Technology.

The mechanism is straightforward. If the council passes the bill, the question would appear on Baltimore's November ballot. A yes vote from residents would reduce the mayor's ability to block the inspector general from accessing records during active investigations. "This is not just a decision our city council or the mayor," Conway said Monday. "It will ultimately be a decision by the people."

Cumming, who has already filed a lawsuit against City Hall over the standoff, told council members the bill would restore access her office held without interruption for two decades before January, when the Law Department under City Solicitor Ebony Thompson moved to restrict it. "In those same eight years we have had three different mayors, four different council presidents, four different solicitors," Cumming said. "During all those changes, the office has performed the same work with the same access, serving as a constant for this city."

Conway dismissed the notion that the fix is complicated. The IT Department, he noted, already has unrestricted access to city agency data. "Right now, the IT Department can go into anybody's emails and do whatever they need to do. So we give her the same access. Problem solved," he said. "I remind you, it was the decision of the administration to pull that access from the IG."

Conway anticipated resistance, saying he "fully expected" the Law Department "to block this bill under the guise of legal sufficiency" and that council colleagues would be reluctant to break with Mayor Brandon Scott. The Association of Inspectors General has written to the mayor and council flagging what it called "alarming steps" to deny the OIG's "longstanding direct access to government records."

Cumming's office has logged nearly 5,000 hotline complaints and more than 200 investigations since 2018. Baltimore voters have twice expanded the office's independence, most recently with 86% approval in 2022. If Conway's bill clears the council, the November ballot would offer a third such moment.