Baltimore County Inspector General Kelly Madigan

Two bills that would have given Baltimore County more oversight over the school system are dead in the Maryland General Assembly.

One would have given the county’s inspector general the authority to investigate fraud, waste and abuse in the school system. The other would have allowed the county to attach strings to some of the money it sends to the schools.

Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski wants the county’s inspector general to have oversight authority of the county school system.

Despite more than $130 million worth of contracts spread out over a decade that aimed to improve Baltimore City and Baltimore County’s shared, aging water system, a joint report from the city’s and county’s Offices of the Inspector General released Monday discovered more than 22,000 dysfunctional water meters that have resulted in millions of dollars worth of uncollected revenue. 

Baltimore City Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming and Baltimore County Inspector General Kelly Madigan also decried “a fundamental lack of communication between the city and the county [that] is central to the problems that have been plaguing the water billing system for years” in the report, which landed after nine months of investigation. 

Baltimore County’s first inspector general is pleading for help from county officials.

As she wraps up her first year in office, Kelly Madigan said she does not have the people she needs to find waste, fraud and abuse in county government and to keep its employees in line with ethics rules.