After months of controversy over the way Baltimore County’s inspector general is chosen, an effort to reform the system advanced last night.

By a 7-0 vote, the Baltimore County Council approved a charter amendment that would create a seven-member panel to appoint, or reappoint, a person to serve in that watchdog role.

The measure strips away the county executive’s current exclusive power to name the IG.

“This much-needed legislation will remove the political influence in the appointment and reappointment process of the county’s inspector general,” the bill’s sponsor, Izzy Patoka (D, 2nd), said in a statement posted to social media.

County voters will see the charter amendment on the ballot in the November 2026 election.

Patoka introduced the bill in the wake of the uproar that followed County Executive Kathy Klausmeier’s decision to conduct an open search for a new inspector general rather than re-appoint the current IG, Kelly Madigan.

Critics traced Klausmeier’s move to politics, pointing to top Democrats, including former County Executive Johnny Olszewski and 4th District Councilman Julian E. Jones Jr., scrutinized in some of Madigan’s investigative reports.

The Council ultimately rejected the appointment of Khadija Walker, a former federal auditor chosen by a panel that Klausmeier formed.

Seven-member Board

The make-up and functioning of the board are spelled out in the charter amendment:

• The board would have seven people, all of whom must be county residents 21 or older.

• Elected officials, their staff or family members, and lobbyists would be barred from serving on the appointment board.

• The county executive and the Council would each appoint one member, and a third would be a former or retired judge appointed by the director of the county’s ethics commission.

• The board would also include a member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, a member of the Maryland Association of Certified Public Accountants and a faculty member from a Baltimore County college or university.

• The final member would be either a faculty member of a historically Black college or university or faculty at a law school in Maryland.

Among the tweaks to the bill approved last night was an amendment that specifies that the inspector general must reside in the Baltimore-Columbia-Towson area during their tenure.

As The Brew first reported, Walker, the IG candidate put forth by Klausmeier, lives in Fredericksburg, Va. – about 110 miles and 2½ hours away by car from the job.