Posted on 07/25/23
| News Source: FOX45
A new report from the Office of the Inspector General found that the city was charged more than $33,000 after it failed to suspend phone service after the election in November of 2022.
According to the IG report, the Department of Telecommunications provides 400 mobile phones to the Baltimore City Board of Elections during the elections process. The phones are activated about a month before a Primary Election and deactivated after the General Election, according to the investigation.
The city is charged $11,171.63 per month for election-related mobile service; when the service is suspended, the city is billed $142, according to the investigation.
The investigation revealed that there didn't appear to be a request from the Board of Elections to suspend service.
Baltimore was charged $11,171.63 for election mobile phone service between January and March of 2023, when it would have been charged $142 had the service been suspended, said the report.
The city requested and received a refund of $41,209.02 for those three months of election mobile service it didn't need, which included a partial credit toward the April bill, according to the report.
The Office of the Inspector General recommended that the Board of Elections create a written procedure for election phone service.
In a response to the report, Comptroller Bill Henry said that members of the telecom staff would meet to review and develop written procedures.
"Your report highlighted the fact that despite improvements in oversight and administrative controls, we unfortunately still had staff who bypassed the established protocols including the ticketing system and continued to correspond directly with the Board of Elections via email/phone," said Henry in the letter.