Inspector general finds 15 Baltimore officials stayed on payroll after leaving job

Baltimore’s inspector general found that 15 city officials stayed on the payroll after they had already left government, putting more than $300,000 in questioned payments under a microscope and raising fresh questions about who at City Hall was watching the books.

The sharpest example came from City Administrator Faith Leach’s office. A top employee there remained on payroll for 49 workdays and one holiday after leaving, collecting $43,864.16 in gross pay and then another $23,068.97 for personal leave, vacation and sick leave. For Baltimore taxpayers, the numbers turn a human-resources dispute into a basic control failure: the city was still issuing checks after the employment relationship had ended.

The Baltimore City Office of the Inspector General posted a public synopsis of case #25-0025-I, titled “Employee Separation Potential Waste,” on May 19, 2026. The office says those public synopses are summaries of fuller reports sent to city management officials, and the broader mission of the watchdog is to promote accountability, efficiency and integrity in city government while investigating fraud, waste and abuse.

CBS Baltimore reported that the investigation began in 2025 after a complaint that the mayor’s office was using permission leave for employees leaving their jobs. CBS also reported that roughly half of the questioned payments went to mayor’s office employees. WMAR 2 News reported that five former mayor’s office employees received combined permission leave or extended separation pay totaling $147,264.90 over 276 days, while eight additional employees in other city agencies received about $76,615.07 over 229 workdays since January 2024. WMAR said the inspector general identified total permission leave pay of $312,555.86.

The mayor’s office pushed back, calling permission leave common in many industries and saying it would work to make sure it was applied fairly. In a statement quoted by CBS, the office said, “Discretionary HR decisions, especially ones that do not violate policy, are not inequitable or wasteful simply because the IG personally perceives them to be.” The fight over the payroll finding landed as Mayor Brandon Scott was already pressing an oversight and transparency package announced May 13 that sought to clarify inspector general processes, change state law to exempt the office from nearly all Public Information Act categories, and later pursue a charter amendment. Isabel Mercedes Cumming said the proposal was about control, not accountability.

For Baltimore, the dispute now sits at the intersection of payroll rules, taxpayer oversight and the city’s wider struggle over how much independence its watchdog should have when money keeps moving after employees do.