Howard County Council unanimously approves bill establishing new policies for Auditor's Office

Apr. 4—The Howard County Council unanimously passed a bill Monday that will implement new guidelines for how the county auditor conducts special investigations. The vote came in the wake of a February Auditor's Office report that led to public outcry and calls to fire the county auditor.

The legislation, introduced by Chair Christiana Rigby and council member Opel Jones, requires the county auditor to present a rationale, timeline, a list of witnesses and records being sought as well as any additional information requested by the council before initiating a special audit. After an investigation is completed, the auditor must also provide the council with preliminary findings and a draft report.

The bill originally applied the new procedures to financial and management audits as well as special audits, but the council voted 3-2 to approve an amendment limiting the legislation's scope to special audits defined in Section 213 of the Howard County Charter. Rigby and Jones voted against the amendment.

Under Section 213, the County Council or county executive can order an audit of any department, office or agency that receives county funds.

"It is disappointing that some of the amendments watered down the bill, but nonetheless I'm happy that it passed unanimously," said Jones, a Democrat representing District 2.

County Executive Calvin Ball said in an email Tuesday that he hoped passage of the bill would prevent future overreach by the auditor's office, adding that community members' trust in the office had been "severely shaken."

"Despite the passage of this legislation, I remain deeply concerned that the County Auditor conducted an inappropriate investigation and did not recognize the racially insensitive language contained in the report on the Howard County Library System," said Ball, who is a Democrat.

Monday's vote followed several public protests and two public hearings during which dozens of residents and community leaders testified. Jones and Rigby both called for County Auditor Craig Glendenning to be fired after his office published a report Feb. 14 that the two council members say exceeded his authority and used a racially insensitive tone to describe a fall library system event.

Glendenning did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday morning.

In early October, the Auditor's Office received a fraud, waste and abuse tip regarding a Central Branch library reception for the opening of an exhibit documenting a historically Black sorority chapter's 50 years of community service. The complaint alleged that library system CEO and President Tonya Aikens was using "a personal gathering for her college sorority sisters" at taxpayers' expense.

Following the tip, County Auditor's Office staff observed the Oct. 7 event from outside the branch and noted in the February report: "African American women wearing white dresses were entering the building." The report has since been edited to remove those references.

The report sparked outrage from residents and attendees at the reception who said the tip was an example of racial profiling and an attempt to discredit Aikens.

"Are you OK with the covert surveillance of county residents and organizations? Do you feel that the auditor acted in accordance with best practices and ethical standards? Do you stand by his posting the personally [identifiable] attributes of private county residents?" Tracey Williams, president of the African-American Community Roundtable of Howard County, asked the County Council at a March 20 hearing.

In early March, Glendenning sent an apology letter to all five County Council members, the African-American Community Roundtable and the sorority chapter referenced in the report. The letter states the report "may have brought undue scrutiny" to the sorority and that the specific organization using the library's space was irrelevant to the investigation.

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"It was inappropriate and unnecessary for my report to call out the dress, gender, or race of attendees of the event," Glendenning said in the letter. "I sincerely apologize for making members of the sorority, or the larger Black community of Howard County, feel targeted."

In response to the county auditor's report, a committee appointed by the library's board of trustees issued its own findings clarifying that Aikens is not a member of any sorority and that all food and beverages were paid for by the sorority. However, the board said it would examine the library system's policy for early closures given that the Central Branch closed four hours early at 2 p.m. on the day of the reception.

Opponents of the bill argued it would imbue the auditing process with political influence and discourage whistleblowers from coming forward if the council was made privy to audit details from the onset of an investigation.

"If you have an auditor who's not doing the job right, what you do is you counsel the auditor and in the extreme you have to let him go," said Ellicott City resident and certified public accountant Angie Boyter during testimony on March 27. "You don't interfere with the way he does his job."

At Monday's legislative session, council member Liz Walsh said the Central Branch's early closure, along with an October tweet by the sorority chapter describing the event as private, raised concerns of a misuse of facilities by the library. But she condemned the identification of private parties in the report and ultimately threw her support behind the bill, despite reservations.

"I agree reprimand for the recent report is in order and I view this flawed bill, as amended, to affect that reprimand," said Walsh, a District 1 Democrat.

Walsh said her office hopes to introduce a proposal to create an independent Office of the Inspector General in Howard to oversee fraud and waste complaints instead of the county auditor. Similar offices are already in place in Montgomery, Prince George's and Baltimore counties.