By Megan Sayles
AFRO Staff Writer
msayles@afro.com
A recent report from the Baltimore City Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found that staffers in the Mayor’s Office failed to comply with policies related to the use of procurement cards (P-cards) for purchasing food, flowers and other items tied to funerals, office celebrations and sporting events.
According to the OIG report, 336 transactions totaling $167,455.06 lacked required waivers or involved prohibited purchases. Overall, the Mayor’s Office spent more than $36 million on P-cards since June 2022, meaning the questioned transactions accounted for less than 1 percent of that spending.
“The OIG also learned that the Mayor’s Office has spent approximately $52,588.78 taxpayer funds on food or beverages at Baltimore Orioles and Baltimore Ravens games. Witnesses claimed that this has been a practice of prior mayoral administrations, as the city has a mayoral suite at both stadiums,” wrote IG Isabel Cumming in the investigation report synopsis. “A review of spending for the Mayor’s Office found that city funds, including P-cards, were used for internal celebratory events or employee appreciation for executives, including the Executive Employee 1’s farewell event. This investigation found that P-card policies regarding such events have been inconsistently enforced across other city agencies.”
P-cards are city-issued credit cards intended to streamline small-dollar purchases for government agencies. For certain items, including food and flowers, cardholders must submit a waiver to the Bureau of Procurement (BOP) for approval.
The P-card manual also says that the cards should not be used for retirement parties, holiday celebrations or employee appreciation events. However, the report highlighted that the BOP has allowed some staff appreciation purchases for the Mayor’s Office in spite of denying waivers for similar events in other city agencies.
In a response letter to the report, John David Merrill, the mayor’s chief of staff, noted that the $167,455.06 in P-card transactions lacking required waivers represents just 0.19 percent of the Mayor’s Office budget during the period reviewed.
In a recent interview with the AFRO, the mayor also emphasized that the report did not detect any deliberate misuse of the cards. He noted that one individual who was non-compliant is no longer employed by his office.
“It’s not about whether any of the expenses were illegal or inappropriate, it’s that folks didn’t follow the protocols that were already in place in order to use them,” Scott said. “What we’re doing now is putting more fail safes in there to ensure that doesn’t happen in the future.”
Scott characterized the city’s use of sky boxes at Orioles and Ravens games as a longstanding practice and noted that government spending in them is “not a new thing.” He believes some of the framing of the report and subsequent media coverage has made the spending appear questionable or improper, even though he maintains the expenditures were legal and consistent with standard city practices.
“If I’m bringing in principals from schools, DPW (Department of Public Works) workers, firefighters, police officers, kids and families of victims of gun violence and tragedy into the sky box, I’m absolutely going to feed them,” Scott said. “It shouldn’t even be a question because that’s something that has been not just standard practice in Baltimore, but around the country for a long time.”
To prevent similar issues in the future, the Mayor’s Office plans to require refresher training for all P-card holders and staff who request purchases, conduct more frequent internal audits and tighten procedures for submitting waivers and reconciling transactions.
