BALTIMORE — The Baltimore City Sheriff and Mayor's Office are in the middle of a multi-million dollar arbitration battle.
A new Inspector General's (IG) report reveals how a November 2023 order from Sheriff Sam Cogen allowed deputies to collect an additional $15 per hour under a special provision in the labor union's Memorandum of Understanding.
Cogen admitted to authorizing deputies to submit something called City Detail Overtime for all regular hours worked, rather than its true intended purpose for public events and crime suppression partnerships.
“We were looking for a legal way to give these guys some more money so they would come to work and so we could recruit people and so we could serve the City, and we found that [City Detail] was that: It was the legal way to do it,” Cogan was quoted in an IG interview.
Some members of the Sheriff's Office shared concern of facing repercussions had they agreed to follow Cogan's order.
As this went on, apparently without the City's knowledge, deputies were simultaneously being overcompensated due to a payroll system error.
Before Cogen ever issued his order, the data error resulted in deputies receiving a combined $132,226.89 in over-payments.
Added with the extra $2,238,419.05 from Cogan's order, 94 deputies were paid $2,370,645.94.2 more than they were entitled.
Upon learning of this, the City's Bureau of Accounting and Payroll Services deactivated Detail Overtime rates.
The union now claims deputies who legitimately worked overtime have been shortchanged. The City, however, still hasn't recouped any money wrongly distributed over the system error and Cogan's order.
Cogan later denied having prior knowledge of the existing system error, instead blaming the City.
"I warned the Mayor and his labor negotiation team that the provision was wrongheaded and would end up costing the City more money than it would otherwise need to spend if they just increased the base salary pay to Sheriff’s deputies," Cogan wrote in a letter responding to the Inspector General. "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."
In their own letter to the Inspector General, the City said Cogan's order was "unauthorized," yet the Sheriff claims he received legal approval from an Assistant Attorney General.
Despite the Sheriff's Office insistence that $2,185,073 million was available for raises at the time, a City employee disputed that telling investigators the agency closed fiscal year 2024 in a $4.5 million deficit.
Cogan maintains he issued the order to increase deputy pay, and to improve staff hiring and retention.
He also denied sending the order out before Mayor Brandon Scott could reject his request for agency pay raises.
The Mayor's Office reacted to the report with this statement.
“We are deeply grateful to the work of members of the departments of Human Resources, Finance, and the Law Office who helped catch this improper use of city funds by the Sheriff's Office and for their work in response to this OIG report.
Simply put, the Sheriff’s directive should have never been issued. It was improper to misuse the “City Detail” pay codes for this purpose, worsened by the Sheriff’s attempt to circumvent the collective bargaining process. Regardless of the misconfiguration of the code, the expansive and deliberate abuse of the detail designation was the driver of this situation. We have addressed the misconfiguration issue and look forward to collectively finding a path forward to address the overpayment in a way that protects taxpayer funds and understands the impossible position that BCSO leadership placed their rank-and-file members.”
To read the full report click here.
