The proposed Fiscal Year 2027 budget for Baltimore County Public Schools is roughly $2.49 billion — by far the largest single expenditure in our county. And yet, today, that enormous sum sits almost entirely outside the reach of the Baltimore County Office of the Inspector General. That is the gap Senator Carl Jackson and I set out to close, together, across party lines.
Our legislation does something deliberately modest: it authorizes the Baltimore County Council to extend the Inspector General's jurisdiction to the school system. It does not mandate it. The Council keeps the final say. This is local control done right — giving our elected county leaders the option to add a layer of independent accountability if they choose, rather than dictating it from Annapolis.
“Every dollar misspent downtown is a dollar that never reaches a classroom.”
Why an inspector general and not just the school system's own auditors? Because there is a fundamental difference between an internal audit and an independent investigation: subpoena power. An inspector general can compel outside documents and testimony, following the money beyond the four walls of the central office. Internal reviewers simply cannot.
We know this approach delivers. In 2025 alone, Montgomery County's Inspector General identified $18.1 million in questioned costs. Every dollar an inspector general recovers or protects is a dollar that can go back where it belongs — into the classroom, the teacher's paycheck, and the student's education.
This is not a partisan crusade, and it is not an attack on our schools or our teachers. The Baltimore County Council already requested this authority through Resolution 40-25, passed with bipartisan support, and even the Teachers Association of Baltimore County backs the idea — because educators understand that every misspent dollar is one diverted from learning. The estimated cost of oversight is about $800,000 a year, a rounding error against a $2.49 billion budget, and a bargain for the trust it would restore.
Parents, teachers, and taxpayers all deserve confidence that school dollars reach students. I'll keep working — with Democrats and Republicans alike — to give Baltimore County the transparency its families have asked for.
