BALTIMORE — Baltimore City's comptroller issued a biennial performance audit on the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood and Safety Engagement (MONSE).
It comes one day after the Inspector General released a report critical of Safe Streets handling of City contracts.
MONSE oversees Safe Streets as noted in the audit.
No fraud was detected, however six phony names appeared on past budgets approved by the City Board of Estimates.
MORE: Lemur Jackson, Merlin Humphrey, Allen Iverson among phony Safe Streets staff
Auditors and the Inspector General found no records of MONSE actually paying those individuals.
The audit also raised concern over $290,357 in duplicate payments made by MONSE between 2023 and 2024.
Another red flag was MONSE's practice of reimbursing contractors without first comparing and verifying daily employee activity logs with payroll registers.
This sometimes affected invoice accuracy, according to the audit.
"For example, based on auditor’s calculations, from July 1, 2021 to January 31, 2024, MONSE made estimated reimbursement of $257,322 to subrecipients without validating the daily activities of the subrecipients’ employees for 180 of 271 samples, or 66 percent," auditors wrote.
The Comptroller's office says it's the first they've audited MONSE.
Auditors listed several recommendations which can be read here.
