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Comptroller says auditor pay adjustments needed to fill vacancies and boost audit capacity
Summary
Baltimore City Comptroller’s office told the Council appropriations committee it plans to use frozen vacancies and future BBMR funds to raise auditor salaries and fill positions, aiming to increase audits and follow-up oversight.
Comptroller told the Baltimore City Council Appropriations Committee on the agency’s budget and staffing for audits, saying the office will use a mix of vacancy freezes this fiscal year and additional funds from the Bureau of Budget and Management Research to raise auditor pay and fill positions.
The Comptroller said the Department of Audits has 38 positions in the audits service, 13 of which are vacant, and that past salary levels were not competitive. “By increasing these salaries to be more competitive, we look forward to actually filling all of the unfrozen vacant auditor positions in the coming year,” the Comptroller said.
Deputy City Auditor Dandi Ma told council members the office is meeting its charter-required audits and performance audits and expects to produce 10 current audits plus eight follow-up audits — a total of 18 audit reports for the cycle she described. “Biannual performance audits can be counted as two audits because we are doing the current audit plus the follow-up audit,” Dandi Ma said.
The Comptroller outlined a staffing plan: freeze a subset of vacant auditor positions in fiscal 2026, apply the salary savings to raise pay for remaining vacant and several filled auditor positions, then request further BBMR funds in fiscal 2027 to unfreeze and raise the rest. He told the committee that a prior lack of a regular salary study left the department behind market rates and that the office expects improved hiring once salaries are adjusted.
On follow-up and impact, Ma said the city charter requires follow-up audits and that the office performs follow-ups alongside current audits in the biennial cycle. She described audit goals as improving transparency and operational efficiency, and gave an example where recommendations to the Department of General Services addressed fuel-card misuse; she said implementing controls could save tens of thousands to potentially much larger sums depending on scale. She added the office cannot always quantify a precise dollar savings in advance because many performance-audit recommendations affect operations and efficiency rather than producing a single, discrete budget line-item.
Council members pressed for metrics and capacity. Councilman Gray asked how many audits the office can complete in fiscal 2026; Ma said the charter-required financial and grant audits, plus performance audits and follow-ups, produce roughly 18 reports in the cycle and that doing more special audits depends on filling positions. Council President Cohen asked the Comptroller to continue coordination with BBMR on the salary plan and asked for updates.
The Comptroller and deputy auditor also discussed using temporary auditors to maintain throughput while full hires proceed; the office said it has used temporary auditors, sometimes hiring them into permanent roles when possible. The Comptroller said the office will also pursue increased oversight hearings with the biannual audit oversight commission to encourage agencies to implement recommendations.
The committee did not take a formal vote during this presentation; staff and council members requested ongoing updates on the salary plan and staffing progress.
