Cumming defends Baltimore watchdog independence against Scott reform plan
Scott’s new oversight plan would pull Baltimore’s watchdog closer to City Hall as Isabel Cumming fights to keep records access and independence out of mayoral hands.
Mayor Brandon Scott’s new oversight and transparency package would pull Baltimore’s inspector general closer to City Hall just as Isabel Mercedes Cumming is fighting to keep her office outside political control. Announced May 13, the plan would confirm the Baltimore Office of the Inspector General as part of the city legal entity, push for later state-law and charter changes, and order an immediate independent examination of the SideStep youth diversion pilot.
Cumming answered with a forceful defense of the watchdog’s independence. Baltimore voters first separated the office from elected control in 2018, when the charter amendment made the OIG an independent office overseen by an independent advisory board. In 2022, voters went further, approving by 86.52% to 13.48% a measure that made that board citizen-based rather than politically appointed, a change meant to reduce the conflicts that had shadowed earlier oversight structures.
The dispute is now centered on what Scott’s proposal would change in practice. Under his plan, the OIG would be treated as part of the City of Baltimore legal entity and would be tied to a legal representative chosen through the city solicitor’s office, which is appointed by the mayor. Scott has framed the package as a way to strengthen resident trust and provide “a roadmap” for oversight, but Cumming’s response argues that Baltimore already chose a different route: an inspector general protected from political interference.
The fight is also playing out in court over records tied to the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, or MONSE. Cumming sued City Hall in February over redacted records tied to the SideStep inquiry, after the law department provided heavily redacted material and treated her subpoenas like ordinary public-records requests. Cumming said it was the first time in her eight years on the job that the law department redacted records before giving them to the OIG. The Maryland Attorney General’s Office sided with the mayor in a public opinion that same month, but Cumming has maintained that the watchdog needs unredacted records to follow the money.
The SideStep probe reaches into Baltimore’s Western District and into how the city handled juvenile information. SideStep ran there from January 2022 through 2024, served youth 17 or younger, and was designed as an alternative for certain first-time offenders charged with qualifying lower-level offenses. MONSE later sought to expand the program citywide during June 2025 budget hearings. In March, the OIG said the investigation found fraudulent invoices and a juvenile-data exposure and referred both matters to law enforcement. The synopsis also said MONSE relied on a 2019 carve-out naming the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, a law that was never updated after MONSE replaced that office in December 2020. Scott wants a new review of SideStep; Cumming’s response says the deeper question is who controls Baltimore’s watchdog and the public money it follows.
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