Baltimore, Maryland’s watchdog agency is suing Democratic Mayor Brandon Scott for allegedly withholding records on potential abuse of public funds.
Scott is hampering officials’ “ability to adequately investigate complaints of fraud, financial waste, and abuse in City government,” Baltimore Inspector General Isabel Cumming’s office claimed Tuesday in local court. The lawsuit follows Scott continually barring Cumming from accessing payroll information on the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (MONSE), which Scott created in 2020 to reduce gun violence through community organizing, according to multiple reports.
At the state level, excessive overtime and other missteps among government employees cost Maryland taxpayers millions of dollars, a December report by the Office of Personnel Services and Benefits found.
“As we have noted from the beginning, the Mayor remains committed to transparency and to an [inspector general’s office] that is both effective and complies with the law,” Scott’s office told the Daily Caller News Foundation, declining to comment on a pending case.
“Separate from the litigation, we remain eager for the Law Department to work with the [Cumming] to outline renewed protocols that ensure the Inspector General’s work proceeds uninterrupted, while complying with state law,” Scott’s office said.
The city was previously willing to turn over documents to Cumming’s office without incident but “took a stunning about face” in 2025 during her current investigation, according to the lawsuit. Scott’s administration released heavily redacted pages of records, claiming state law invalidates inspector general requests, Cumming said.
“The state law is clear,” Scott said earlier in February about the decision, according to Fox45. “The actions that we took complied with the state law.”
Maryland legislators introduced a bill on Tuesday that would explicitly make Cumming’s requests not subject to state law, as Scott’s office asserts.
“The City’s position disregards the plain language of the City Charter and the independence enshrined upon the [inspector general’s office] through the will of the people, denying [her] direct access to information critical to carrying out the duties and responsibilities of the office,” Tuesday’s lawsuit alleges.
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