Accountabilityby Mark Reutter3:40 pmDec 10, 20240

Inspector General Cumming seeks a second term tonight. Her first one was a smashing success

Once little known in city circles, the Office of the Inspector General has become a trusted source of objective investigations of government waste and abuse

Above: Isabel Mercedes Cumming at her office in City Hall. (Fox45)

After conducting hundreds of investigations over the last seven years, Isabel Mercedes Cumming knows what to expect during a second term:

“Never a dull moment!”

Heading a department charged with examining complaints of waste, fraud and abuse in local government, Baltimore’s Inspector General has far outlasted her predecessors while carving out a unique role for her 18-person office, protected by voters who granted her subpoena powers in 2018 and protected her from political interference in 2022.

Tonight an advisory board of seven citizens, two accounting experts, two law school deans – and no political officeholders – is expected to approve a second six-year term for Cumming.

“It will be quite an honor,” she told The Brew in a rare on-the-record interview. “I have no aspirations to do anything other than the job I have. It’s the public that I work for.”

6 P.M. UPDATE: The IG Advisory Board thanked Cumming for her service and voted to approve a second six-year term through 2030.

Such work hasn’t always been easy in a city known for its its fallen mayors, dark budgets and “no snitching” credo.

Especially in 2021 when Cumming was under assault by allies of former State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, who had requested that Cumming examine her trips abroad and her secretive Mahogany Elite travel companies following reports in The Brew.

Saying she expected to be fully absolved from “these false conjectures and insinuations,” Mosby expressed fury when Cumming reported instead that Baltimore’s chief prosecutor had been away from office for many more days than The Brew reported and had used Mahogany Elite to pay for airline tickets and write off income taxes, even though the company had no reported income or clients.

The local head of the NAACP, among others, questioned Cumming’s objectivity and strongly suggested she was out to unfairly target Black officeholders.

Cumming shot back, saying she would not change her report and forwarded evidence she found to the Maryland U.S. Attorney’s Office, which later indicted and convicted Mosby of perjury and mortgage fraud in connection with her purchase of two Florida vacation homes.

Cumming recently posted a comment made to The Brew story announcing her hiring,

Cumming recently posted a comment made in the Brew story that announced her hiring, expressing skepticism that the first female (and Hispanic) inspector general in Baltimore would last long. (X)

The next nine months proved dicey when the IG Advisory Board – then filled with City Hall appointees – tried to rein in her investigations and subject her work product to board review.

“I was ‘independent’ with a board appointed by the mayor, the City Council president [Nick Mosby, Marilyn Mosby’s then-husband], the comptroller and a Council member,” she recalled.

When the board decided to hold a performance review in private, which seemed a prelude to firing her, Cumming waived her right of confidentiality and demanded that the hearing be conducted in public.

“I decided, if this office is going to be independent, the public has to know what’s happening. So I gave up my privacy rights to do a public job review. The board then backed down.”

• Inspector General oversight fight is a watershed moment for the city (8/31/21)

In November 2022, voters approved, by an 86% margin, a new IG Advisory Board of citizens without elected officials and city employees. Last week, Nick Mosby left the City Hall, defeated by Zeke Cohen, a longtime supporter of the IG.

Isabel Cumming next to lukewarm water bottles found in sweltering heat at DPW's Reedbird Sanitation Yard last July. (OIG)

Isabel Cumming stands next to lukewarm water bottles found in employee quarters at DPW’s Reedbird Sanitation Yard last July. (OIG)

Ferreting Out Waste

An inspector general is not to be confused with the duties of a state’s attorney or with state and federal prosecutors.

The OIG conducts civil investigations of fraud, financial waste and abuse in city government. It also will also undertake criminal cases, which are turned over to law enforcement partners for prosecution.

The law requires Cumming to respond to complaints from employees, managers, “whistleblowers” (as defined by local law) and the general public.

Cumming said that in the last six years her office has uncovered $38 million in waste. In 2024 alone, it received 827 complaints and, as a result, identified $16.9 million in waste and/or savings — “not bad,” she says, for an office whose current budget is $2.4 million.

Equally important, she believes the office has become established in the minds of citizens, who know and respect its efforts to promote good government with the OIG hotline (443-984-3476), her media appearances, annual reports and other outreach efforts.

“This office serves as the people’s watchdog,” she says, “and I am grateful and humbled to work for them.”

The Brew has extensively covered the IG. Here is a sampling of the office’s investigations and findings:

SOME BACKGROUND

• How Baltimore’s Inspector General’s office got defanged (12/22/17)

• Probe of alleged improper office behavior was halted last year (2/24/17)

• Exclusive: Washington Metro attorney to become next Baltimore Inspector General (12/28/17)

STORIES ON WASTE

• Baltimore operates a water billing system riddled with problems, city and county IGs find (12/21/20)

• IG: Taxpayers foot the bill for vehicles that take Fire Department brass home (8/4/21)

• Correcting the latest foul-up by Workday will cost taxpayers half a million dollars (3/31/23)

• Baltimore Housing Authority owes city $7.9 million in delinquent water bills, Inspector General finds (9/12/23)

• Cost of protecting the mayor and two other city executives rises sharply (5/16/24)