City Council weighs inspector general access in records fight with Hall

Baltimore’s top watchdog said the city’s refusal to open records is blunting investigations into programs residents pay for, from the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement to the SideStep youth diversion effort. At City Hall, the dispute over Inspector General Isabel Cumming’s access to files became a test of whether Baltimore can hold its own agencies accountable when the records themselves stay out of reach.

Cumming’s office had subpoenaed financial records tied to SideStep and documents from the Baltimore City Office of Information Technology, but she said the city handed over only about 200 pages, many of them heavily redacted. The break came after years in which her office had direct access to information, according to reporting on the case, before the city began treating her subpoenas like Maryland Public Information Act requests in June 2025 and insisting that some material could be withheld under attorney-client privilege.

That standoff has already moved into Baltimore Circuit Court. Cumming filed suit on February 24, 2026, seeking a declaration that the Office of the Inspector General is independent and has subpoena authority. The city’s position in court has been that those subpoena powers apply only to entities outside city government, leaving the watchdog to fight for records from the very departments she is tasked with examining.

Councilman Mark Conway, who chairs the City Council public safety committee, has tried to answer that problem with a charter amendment that would make the inspector general a custodian of city agency records and give the office supervisory authority over those files, including some personnel-related material. Conway and supporters say the change would restore oversight and transparency. The hearing drew packed council chambers and a tense public audience as supporters, city attorneys and council members watched the arguments play out.

City attorney Jeff Hochstetler said a local charter amendment could not override the Maryland Public Information Act, and Mayor Brandon Scott’s administration said it was following state law rather than withholding records by choice. Conway countered that the Law Department faced a conflict because it was defending the mayor’s office while also taking the position that the inspector general should not have unrestricted access. A Baltimore judge has already said the city solicitor’s office effectively foreclosed the inspector general’s subpoena enforcement options.

The hearing ended without a final answer, leaving the council to decide whether to advance the amendment and send it to voters. Baltimore voters created the Office of the Inspector General as an independent office in 2018 and later made its advisory board citizen-based in 2022. The present fight now turns on whether that independence means real access to city records, or only a watchdog with limited sight lines when the public most needs answers.