If  you want to understand why Mayor Brandon Scott is intent on limiting access to city records by Baltimore Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming, look no further.

In a report issued today, the city’s waste and fraud watchdog found that the mayor’s office has been spending lavishly on itself, providing cruise ship-like comforts and perks for top staff, including crab feasts, pizza, banana bread pudding, bottomless freshly popped popcorn and “a fresh fruit tray available to everyone in the mayor’s suite daily” – all at taxpayer expense.

Between July 2022 and November 2025, Cumming’s office tracked down $801,839 of procurement card (P-card) and Workday expenditures for meals and catering, $42,691 for floral arrangements and funeral services, and another $45,646 “unreconciled” and not yet recorded, totaling $890,176.

That amount doesn’t count another $310,785 spent on mayor-sponsored community events (for furniture rental, artwork, etc.) and $187,272 on t-shirts, backpacks, award placards and miscellaneous bling given out by the office.

Among the hundreds of food and beverage purchases listed in the report were $52,589 spent at Ravens and Orioles games “when the mayor or mayor’s office staff attended games in the Mayoral Suite at both stadiums.”

In addition, “the investigation found P-Card transactions and expenditures related to birthday celebrations, employee appreciations, baby showers and flowers for a selected few, including executive leadership,” Cumming wrote.

Among the expenditures: a $3,636 farewell party for an employee who decided to remain in City Hall and is currently a top mayoral advisor.

For example, $3,636 was spent at a March 2025 farewell party for “executive employee 1,” which  The Brew can identify through prior reporting as Marvin James, Scott’s former campaign manager who then served as his chief of staff. (NOTE: In an early version of this story, the party cost was described as $7,055, a result of doublecounting Workday and P-card costs.)

• They gave him a farewell party. But that doesn’t mean Marvin James is leaving City Hall (4/17/25)

The party featured a $324 balloon arch, a $217 cake and “five foam boards featuring the image of Executive Employee 1” costing $394, according to the report. Plus more than $2,600 for crab balls, grilled salmon, meatballs and other catered food.

After the party, James decided not to leave City Hall. He remains on the payroll as the mayor’s $190,000-a-year-plus senior advisor.

$167,000 in P-Card Violations

At least 336 of the P-card transactions violated city procurement rules, according to Cumming, which require a waiver for the use of public funds “for any social functions or activities” without the express approval of the Bureau of Purchasing.

While BOP does enforce those rules on city agencies, barring the use of taxpayer money for birthday, retirement, recognition and other parties, it frequently approves the same requests by the mayor’s office, Cumming wrote.

More significantly, the mayor’s office failed to obtain waivers for $167,455 worth of charged costs, the vast majority for food or catering. “There were no waivers for spending by the Mayoral Suite per BOP policy,” the report pointed out. “Nor did the OIG observe waivers submitted through Workday by the cardholders as of November 17, 2025.”

What’s more, “the OIG found that roughly $5,144.45 was spent on furniture-related items and $4,409.83 on computers or monitors. The mayor’s office did not submit any waivers for these purchases, as required.”

The office spent over $4,300 to cater six City Council meetings (four of which lacked P-Card waivers) and $10,631 more on Council lunches through Workday. When the purchasing bureau denied the use of the P-card to host the mayor’s annual crab feast with the Council, saying it “wasn’t a good use of city funds,” the mayor’s office went to Michael Mocksten, director of finance, who approved it.

When the purchasing bureau denied the use of the P-card to host the mayor’s annual crab feast with the City Council, saying it “wasn’t a good use of city funds,” the mayor’s office went to the director of finance, who approved it  – OIG Report.

Cumming said her investigators were told that if the mayor’s office “receives pushback” from the purchasing office, it will go over its head and “talk it out” with the finance director.

In addition, there were more than $10,000 in P-card purchases of flowers, which city regulations say are not to be purchased “for any reason.”

“The OIG found that taxpayer funds were used for floral purchases for events, employee celebrations, recognition, baby arrivals, funerals bereavement and condolence,” with $1,461 spent in 2023, $5,243 in 2024 and $3,477 in the first 10 or so months of 2025.

Restricting Future Investigations

“It is important to note,” Cumming wrote today, “that the city solicitor’s recent legal analysis that the Office of the Inspector General is subject to Maryland Public Information Act would have limited this investigation.”

She was referring to the administration’s attempts over the last four weeks to restrict her access to city financial and personnel records, citing attorney-client privilege and the Maryland Public Information Act.

“It is important to note that the city solicitor’s recent legal analysis that the Office of the Inspector General is subject to Maryland Public Information Act would have limited this investigation”  – IG Cumming.

Yesterday Cumming filed a lawsuit in Baltimore Circuit Court asking a judge to enjoin the city from restricting her access to Workday and other records and for failing to respond to a subpoena for unredacted documents from the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (MONSE).

“This fight is for the people and, as I always say, never underestimate the power of the people,” Cumming said.

Mayor’s Office: “Legitimate Expenses”

In response to the OIG report, Chief of Staff J.D. Merrill dismissed the $167,455 in unapproved P-card transactions as equal “to an estimated 0.19% of the mayor’s office budget over the time period reviewed” and noted that one cardholder in the mayor’s office whose purchases were flagged by the inspector general in her detailed internal report to the administration “is no longer an employee of the mayor’s office.”

Merrill said a new position is being created with the mayor’s office “focused on internal fiscal oversight” and “we have voluntarily taken steps to implement professional development and refresher training on P-card use, wavier requirements and fiscal operations for all relevant staff.”

He defended the food purchases as “legitimate expenses that support efficient and necessary operations of city government,” saying that “the mayor’s office regularly takes on the responsibility for providing food for both its own employees and employees of other city agencies, particularly during major activations or extended operations like those seen in the Emergency Operation Center (EOC).”

“Public servants,” Merrill continued, “should not lose access to basic dignity and necessary logistical support when they opt to work long and sometimes inconvenient hours in service of their neighbors.”

He faulted the OIG report as misleading, noting that its examples of taxpayer-funded employee celebrations “seem limited to senior executives in the mayor’s office and does not note that similar celebrations are also held for staff at all levels, making it appear as though these expenditures are disproportionately applied to senior executives.

“Public servants [need] logistical support when they opt to work long and sometimes inconvenient hours in service of their neighbors”  – Chief of Staff J.D. Merrill.

“While the report frames these expenditures as frivolous, unnecessary and out of compliance with protocol, it also notes that BOP inconsistently applied the policy. This inevitably led to confusion among administrative staff, which, moving forward, will be addressed by the comprehensive retraining that the mayor’s office is voluntarily undertaking.”

Cumming was succinct in her response to Merrill’s statement.

During the same time period covered by today’s report, “the OIG completed investigations that found Department of Public Works solid waste workers lacked access to water and Gatorade during summer months.”