The idea of pushing Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to regularly audit the books of Baltimore city departments got a (literal) airing yesterday on the Marc Steiner Show, as former city Recreation and Parks Department Director Chris Delaporte and three City Councilmen came on the program to discuss it. (Podcast here.)

Listeners calling in provided perhaps the most interesting element to the hour-long show (on WEAA-FM 88.9), as they reacted to news that not all city departments are routinely audited – and, to the contrary, many have not had an audit in decades.

“Egregious” and “disgusting,” said “Lavonne.”

A caller identified as “Shannon” said of the revelation: “It’s flabbergasting.”

Joined by Councilmen James B. Kraft and Bill Henry, Councilman Carl Stokes talked about the ordinance he has proposed requiring audits of every city department every two years. Delaporte, meanwhile, expanded on the points he made in a May 1 op-ed piece for The Brew.

EWOs under Scrutiny

This website has been writing regularly about the issue and documented a dozen examples (here are just two) of city spending and contract award practices that raise questions about the need for audits.

Delaporte’s op-ed grew out of a comment he posted in reaction to Rawlings-Blake’s statements on an earlier Steiner Show about EWOs (extra work orders) that regularly appear before the Board of Estimates.

In the Bureau of Water and Wastewater, more than 90 EWOs have been tacked onto a single contract, either to cover cost overruns or to pay for unrelated work that the city has not put out to competitive bids. The Brew noted that these EWOs ballooned the cost of the contract from $11 million to $17 million.

Amid the momentum apparently building for more audits – advocates have started a petition drive and Harry E. Black, the city’s new finance director, told the City Council last week that he, too, was concerned about EWOs and city procurement practices – there is some criticism about the idea.

This comes not just from administration officials who might be expected to resist audits. Some education advocates chided Stokes this week when he spoke at a meeting citing the city’s poor accounting practices as the reason he is blocking a city bottle tax hike earmarked for school renovation. Others thought he was right to be “standing on principle.”

You can read more about the debate from the Brew story (and lively comments) on that meeting here.