News and Media
Best Fiasco
The Audit Bill
Published: September 19, 2012
In normal cities, government agencies are audited regularly. Some on a schedule, some according to a risk assessment, but almost always all systems are scrutinized at least every few years. Not in Baltimore. Charm City does a single overall audit of the whole budget—basically a line-by-line math check. But no one investigates the police department’s evidence room, its property seizures, or overtime system for abuses. The fire department’s equipment goes un-inventoried; public works and transportation contracts are not checked. Three years ago, a group of people, eventually led by City Councilman Carl Stokes, pushed the mayor and comptroller for an audit of the city’s Department of Recreation and Parks—which had not been done for more 30 years. Still hasn’t. The mayor and the comptroller have resisted that single audit as well as Stokes’ bill—since watered-down, nearly to death—that now proposes a charter amendment to schedule occasional audits of 14 departments. The fiasco perfectly illustrates Baltimore’s exceptionalism.
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