A fresh audit dropped at Wednesday's Board of Estimates meeting has city leaders seething, after it revealed that in 2023 and 2024, Baltimore failed to collect millions of dollars owed by customers and businesses under contract with the city. Auditors flagged more than $4 million in unpaid leases, utilities, and conduit payments, uncovering widespread invoice errors and a logjam of delinquent accounts that immediately set off alarms at City Hall.
Audit Jolts City Hall
According to WBAL-TV, City Auditor Josh Pasch walked the Board of Estimates through what he called "glaring errors" in the Department of Finance's invoices. Mayor Brandon Scott did not mince words, telling the board, "There is no way in hell that we should have this amount of money just standing out there," while City Council President Zeke Cohen complained that delinquent accounts are not being routed to the law department for any serious follow-up.
Finance Director Michael Mocksten pushed back slightly, saying staffing shortages helped create the backlog and that his department has already rolled out new policies. He noted the city recouped more than $4 million last year but acknowledged that officials still could not immediately produce a full list of who owes money or the total outstanding balance, an omission that did little to calm the room.
Audit Echoes Earlier Warnings About Collections
The latest findings track closely with concerns the Comptroller's Department of Audits has been sounding for years. Its biennial performance reviews have urged clearer written policies, tighter reconciliations, and more training to cut down on bookkeeping mistakes, as detailed by the Comptroller's Department of Audits.
WYPR reported in 2022 that the Department of Public Works did not have a system to chase overdue water bills, and Baltimore Brew has documented how agency bookkeeping lapses left the city sitting on roughly $12 million in unpaid water charges in 2023 and 2024.
What Officials Say Should Change
At Wednesday's meeting, city leaders pressed for concrete fixes instead of more hand-wringing. Among the ideas: automatic referrals of delinquent accounts to the law department, stronger automated reconciliations inside Finance, and public reporting of who owes what, so the numbers do not quietly vanish into a spreadsheet.
The Comptroller's audits and past reporting suggest those reforms will not be quick lifts. They will require formal policies on paper, consistent training for staff, and enough bodies in key offices to keep up with the work. The Board of Estimates' public schedule already shows follow-up audit reviews slotted into upcoming agendas, a sign that this issue is not going away anytime soon.
For residents and small contractors, the questions are more basic: who is on the hook, and will the city finally chase every delinquent account with the same energy it uses to send out the original bills? Officials insist they are working toward a fuller, more transparent solution. Until the finance office tightens its procedures and publishes clearer accounting, though, unpaid bills will keep haunting Baltimore's budget and testing City Hall's claims of accountability.
