Ballot measure would shield Baltimore County inspector general
Kelly Madigan is not running for anything, but she would like your vote anyway.
Madigan is Baltimore County's first inspector general, a role she has held since 2020. The Nov. 5 ballot includes a question about whether the inspector general's office should be enshrined in the Baltimore County Charter. It's needed, she and others say, because while public officials love to talk about transparency and accountability, they don't always walk the walk. More than once, Madigan almost lost her job and the powers that come with it because of that.
The ballot measure is Question B .
A "yes" vote would support adding it to the charter, and a "no" would reject that idea.
A vote in favor of the amendment would ensure Madigan's independence and the office's permanence in the county so that no future county executive or County Council could eliminate or weaken it, as was attempted in the summer of 2021. The charter amendment came out of that process, and both County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr. and the current council support the charter amendment.
"The residents of Baltimore County deserve and should expect a government that is transparent, fair and accountable," Olszewski said in announcing his support.
The council passed the legislation to place the legislation on the charter.
"Adding the office to the charter allows the free flow of the business process but also helps it become more of an institutional county agency," Madigan said. "It's not something that's going to be here today, gone tomorrow."
What does an inspector general do — and which public agencies have them in Maryland?
Inspectors general keep government agencies accountable. Many federal agencies have them; in Maryland, Baltimore City , Baltimore County and Montgomery County have IG offices that oversee all departments.
At the state level, there are IG offices for human services (welfare and food stamps), public safety and corrections .
Every office functions differently, but essentially the inspector general investigates waste, fraud and abuse allegations and issues reports about their findings. Inspectors general often have subpoena power and access to privileged information that the public doesn't get to view. IGs often use this information to investigate, but they do not release private information to the public.
Why does the office need to be enshrined in the charter?
The Association of Inspectors General considers enshrining the office in the charter a best practice so government officials can't simply cancel it. Nationwide, states and local governments who are embarrassed by the reports have tried to eliminate inspectors general by zeroing out their budgets or understaffing their offices.
Has the Baltimore County inspector general ever faced such a threat?
Yes. In 2021, Madigan investigated Christopher McCollum, the former director of the county's agricultural center, in relation to $38,000 worth of items that were either missing or purchased in violation of county policy, according to WYPR . McCullum was former County Councilwoman Cathy Bevins' close friend and her campaign manager. Bevins accused Madigan of being a bully, and asked why she had a problem with those purchases if McCullum's supervisor in the county job did not.
McCollum resigned from his $135,000-a-year job as the deputy director of workforce development, and later pleaded guilty to stealing $140,000 from the campaigns of Bevins and other Baltimore Democrats.
County Councilman Julian Jones, who was chairman in 2021, accused Madigan of focusing her investigations on Black employees. Madigan denied that and said she cannot control the information that is provided to her office — much of which, she said, comes from hard-working county employees concerned about malfeasance in office.
At Olszewski's request, Jones then introduced a bill to create an oversight board, with members chosen by Olszewski and Jones, to oversee the inspector general. The bill also substantially curbed her office's powers, restricting her access to only information already made public, ending whistleblower protections, and allowing the board to review and approve her methods.
The public rushed to the office's defense, and Jones pulled the bill. Olszewski then announced a blue-ribbon panel to review best practices. Though the exercise began as an effort to weaken the office, the opposite happened. The panel recommended Madigan hire more staff, have bigger investigative budgets, and maintain her subpoena powers. The panel also recommended the office be enshrined in the charter.
What are the types of issues that Baltimore County's IG investigates?
The reports are on the IG's website . They vary from high-profile cases of preferential treatment, such as giving influential developer David Cordish permission to build a tennis barn that would otherwise not have been allowed (it was never built), to catching a low-level employee stealing asphalt and paving his own driveway on county time and with county resources.
She investigated Jones when he was council chairman for committing $69,000 in county resources to pave an alley outside his district, which the county would not have done but for his insistence.
Madigan has also teamed up with the city of Baltimore's inspector general to investigate the joint city-county water system. Generally, the county has a certain window of time to respond, and then Madigan's office posts the decisions. She said she tries to issue one report a month.
