Home | BaltimoreBrew.com

Inside City Hall

Accountabilityby Brew Editors3:55 pmNov 12, 20150

Audits update: three to be released soon, finance director says

The long, drawn-out process is beginning to bear fruit, with the first round of reports due in two weeks

Henry J. Raymond, the director of Finance, told a City Council committee today that three agency audits, required under a 2012 charter amendment, are on schedule to be completed by November 30.

The financial and performance audits – which were originally promised last June, then in September – are for Raymond’s department, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Recreation and Parks.

A fourth audit of the Baltimore Police Department is expected to be completed on December 15.

Revised Timetable

A fifth audit, for the Department of Public Works, has been delayed and there is no date for completion. Raymond promised to provide more information on the status of the audit to the City Council next month.

In terms of the other eight audits of city agencies required under the charter amendment, Raymond said that four – for Fire, General Services, Housing and Community Development, and the Mayor’s Office of Information Technology (MOIT) – have been approved by the Board of Estimates and are expected to be finished by next spring.

That leaves four audits due before the December 2016 deadline – for Law, Human Resources, Planning, and the Baltimore Development Corporation (BDC).

Law and the BDC will have the audits conducted by the city auditor, Raymond disclosed today.

Councilman Carl Stokes, who has long fought for audits, expressed satisfaction with Raymond’s report.

“I think it’s the best progress I’ve seen in the five years I’ve been here. It’s not perfect. But we do now have everybody in gear to deliver all of these audits by December 2016,” Stokes said during the brief hearing before the Committee on Taxation, Finance and Economic Development.

Most Popular