Baltimore City Comptroller
DUTIES: The position was created by the City Charter which provides that the comptroller:Appoints the city auditor and has general supervision over the Department of Audits and the city auditor,Is responsible for the Accounts Payable Department which is responsible for all payments and disbursements made by the City with the exception of payroll and debt management,Heads the Department of Real Estate, andServes on the Board of Estimates and the Board of Finance.SALARY: $135,093 as of 2023TERM: 4 yearsHOW ELECTED: The Comptroller is elected city-wide.
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Bill Henry
(Dem)
Background: What in your background and experience qualifies you to be Comptroller of Baltimore?
Transparency: What do you see as the most pressing accounting, reporting, and transparency problems in specific city offices and how would you solve these problems?
Concerns: What are specific areas of concern about the Office of the Comptroller that you will prioritize in the coming year?
Campaign Phone
(443)885-0854
As a councilman, I worked on legislation to hold our local government accountable; as Comptroller, my office has improved openness and transparency by putting the City’s expenses online in real time. We've increased the scrutiny of contracts before the City’s Board of Estimates and have worked hard to publicize more information about City spending. We have digitized most of the Board of Estimates' work product and largely eliminated paper by moving the entire process online.
In only 500 characters, it's hard to both describe the problems *and* detail the solutions, so let's focus on identified solutions.
We will continue our push to reign in the usage of emergency procurement, so as to promote openness and transparency in City spending. It's wrong to spend hundreds of millions of dollars this way.
We'll create new dedicated websites for disclosing grant revenue and travel expenses.
We'll continue to refine OpenCheckbook, to make it as user-friendly as possible.
In the coming year, we propose returning administrative oversight of Accounting, Payroll, Revenue Collection, Procurement and Risk Management to our office and expanding our administrative oversight to include Treasury Management. Placing most of the Finance Department back under the Comptroller will not only restore a sorely-needed check on an overly-strong-mayoral system, but it will also provide elected executive attention to back office functions which have languished from neglect.
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