Taxpayers Group Puts Up Billboards Backing Baltimore IG in Records Fight

Three billboards went up across Baltimore this week carrying a pointed message for City Hall: "Baltimore taxpayers stand with Inspector General Isabel Cumming."

The Taxpayers Protection Alliance, a national watchdog group, launched the campaign in support of Baltimore City Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming as she takes Mayor Brandon Scott to court over his administration's alleged shielding and withholding of subpoenaed records. Two of the signs are planted along East Lombard Street; a third faces drivers at the Fort McHenry toll plaza. TPA President David Williams said the group's 125,000 members paid for the placements.

"We want the inspector general to know that taxpayers support her," Williams said. "Politicians may not support her, but taxpayers do."

The dispute stems from the Office of the Inspector General's ongoing investigation into financial transactions made by the Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, known as MONSE. MONSE is the keystone of Mayor Scott's violence prevention efforts and was among the programs awarded $50 million in city and federal funds. When Cumming requested related documents and records, she claims MONSE sent over 200 pages of mostly redacted information.

On January 24, Mayor Scott issued an unusual Saturday press release asserting that Cumming's office "had gained unapproved and unfettered access" to legally protected work product in violation of attorney-client privilege, a claim Cumming said was false and taken without her knowledge or consultation.

Cumming did not back down. She filed a 21-page suit in Baltimore Circuit Court, saying: "Today we file this action for the residents and taxpayers of Baltimore City to allow the OIG to do the job the people have asked it to do." The suit specifically asks the court to affirm the inspector general's right to enforce a subpoena for financial and payroll records from MONSE. Baltimore Brew characterized the move as extraordinary, noting that an IG has never before challenged the mayor in court. Cumming traced the rupture to June 2025, when "the City suddenly departed from its longstanding practice of cooperating with the OIG." Her stated goal is simply to require the city to do what it has done since she took office in 2018.

"This is about accountability. This is about protecting taxpayers," Cumming said in a FOX45 interview.

Williams framed the stakes in blunt terms. "Really the key is information and transparency and without that the inspector general can't get to the bottom of what's happening," he said, adding that if Cumming loses the right to public documents, taxpayers lose too. TPA's stated aim is to urge city leadership to end what it calls a "misguided war against the Inspector General's office."

"Transparency is not optional — it's fundamental to good governance," Williams said in the group's announcement of the campaign. "Accountability doesn't end when it becomes inconvenient."

On the legislative front, the picture is no more encouraging. House Bill 1620, which would codify inspector general access to records needed for fraud investigations, stalled in the Rules Committee, where members have not yet voted on the measure, despite bipartisan support. A companion Senate bill, SB 991, is similarly stalled. At the same time, another bill supported by Mayor Brandon Scott would broaden access to juvenile records for multiple offices at City Hall and is on a fast track toward approval. Williams called the dynamic "dripping with hypocrisy," arguing that the mayor's office has blocked the inspector general while seeking broader access for itself.

With one bill stalled and the other moving rapidly toward approval, delegate Ryan Nawrocki suggested the lack of movement on House Bill 1620 "may be driven by personal motivations." The Circuit Court case will now determine whether Baltimore's independent watchdog has the legal standing to compel compliance with her own subpoenas — a question that, in Cumming's eight years on the job, has never before required a judge to answer.