Prince George’s County should create an inspector general, strengthen its ethics board and create a whistleblower hotline, an ethics task force says in its final report. The Accountability, Compliance and Integrity Advisory Board presented its final report to County Executive Rushern Baker and County Council Chairwoman Ingrid Turner on Monday.
The board recommended the county strengthen the Board of Ethics, which currently has no budget or staff; create a whistleblower hotline for county employees and contractors to report waste, fraud and abuse; and to ensure openness in all county government decisions.
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“These are important issues of great concern to all the residents of Prince George’s County,” said board Chairman Kurt Schmoke, former Baltimore mayor.
It’s also an important time for Baker, Schmoke said. His campaign promise to restore ethics and accountability in Prince George’s may hinge on the execution of the board’s recommendations.
“Clearly we needed help with this issue,” Baker said after receiving the report. “We want to make sure that there’s nobody in the world who looks at Prince George’s County and doesn’t think we’re on the right path.”
County officials will have to determine which measures can be implemented administratively and which will require new laws, and must consider how much the creation of new institutions such as a fully staffed inspector general’s office would cost.
Budget constraints could be the biggest roadblock to fulfilling the board’s recommendations.
“We’ll be deciding what it is we can afford to do as a county, and finding what we’re already doing,” Baker said. “Maybe there’s evidence in [the report] that we need to strengthen some areas.”
Baker gave no timeline for his staff and the County Council to review each recommendation.
The most difficult recommendation to implement could be the inspector general.
“An inspector general at the local level is a relatively new development,” Schmoke said. “I’m sure there’s some growing pains.”
County officials should consult the Association of Inspectors General to use as a guideline for creating their own local office, Schmoke said.
He noted that the report only guides county officials on what measures to take, but leaves it up to Baker and the council to choose how to implement each recommendation.
