In an effort to raise the salaries of his deputies by $15 an hour, Baltimore Sheriff Sam Cogen set off a misconfigured code in the city’s payroll system 15 months ago.

The result: $2,238,419.05 of overpayments were made in a three-month period, according to Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming.

The misconfiguration, which Cogen says he was unaware of, resulted in 94 deputy sheriffs receiving an average of $25,220 in unauthorized overtime between November 15, 2023 and February 26, 2024, Cumming said in a report issued today.

So far, none of the erroneous payments have been returned to city coffers.

Cumming said it is still unclear whether Cogen’s “use of the detail clause for additional salary is legal.” She said Cogen and the Brandon Scott administration both need to clarify procedures “to prevent future confusion and overpayments.”

The IG’s findings is yet another example of payroll snafus at the Bureau of Accounting and Payroll Services (BAPS) and the high-tech Workday system.

Cumming said the code was misconfigured in Workday when BAPS created it in January 2023 – 10 months before the error became a factor in overpaying deputy sheriffs “triple the amount they would have earned for one 8-hour workday.”

An unnamed law firm contracted by the city had reviewed the pay code. In email correspondence, its lawyers “appeared to indicate that the incorrect calculation for the pay code was accurate,” Cumming noted.

Sheriff Cogen did not notify the city or the labor commissioner about his November 2023 order to increase sheriffs’ pay by $15. Two months later, the mayor’s office formally declined to support his request for salary raises.

Blame Game

In the aftermath of Cumming’s findings, Cogen and Mayor Scott are blaming each other for the debacle.

Cogen, who has repeatedly criticized Scott’s crime prevention policies and endorsed Sheila Dixon as mayor last year, argued that improper programming “by the mayor’s Department of Finance” lies at the heart of the overpayments.

In a written response to the IG report, Cogen says he warned the mayor that the “city detail provision” in an MOU between his department and the administration “would likely become problematic.”

“The mayor’s response was to have his Law Department send me a letter admonishing me for bringing these issues to their attention and intimating that I risked personal liability for raising them,” he wrote.

He further argued that BAPS’ refusal to turn back on a corrected Workday provision “raises serious concerns about underpayment of BCSO employees” since last February.

City Solicitor Ebony Thompson, meanwhile, accuses Cogen of “unauthorized pay practices.”

“Sheriff Cogen took it upon himself to issue the detail order after being advised by counsel that statutorily the mayor did not have the authority to increase the salaries of BCSO employees as Sheriff Cogen requested,” Thompson wrote to Cumming, adding:

“The parties are currently in active negotiations to resolve this dispute.”

Cogen said he took the action to retain and attract employees. The average sheriff’s salary is slightly under $70,000, substantially below the pay of city police officers.