Auditors

Auditors have raised doubts about First Mariner Bancorp's ability to remain in business, according to financial statements that the largest Baltimore-based bank, founded by prominent businessman Edwin F. Hale Sr., filed with regulators late Thursday. Stegman & Co., the auditor hired by First Mariner to review its finances for its annual report, said the company "has suffered recurring losses and has a limited capital base. These conditions raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.

Nearly 20 percent of arrests made by Baltimore police for low-level, "quality-of-life" crimes haven't been properly documented, according to a new audit that a civil liberties group says understates the agency's shortcomings in meeting terms of a legal settlement. Independent auditor Charles Wellford, a University of Maryland criminologist, sampled about 1,100 arrests from April to December 2011 and found that 17 percent of reports written by officers did not support a finding of probable cause.

Washington -- William F. Gibson has moved again to muzzle Coopers & Lybrand auditors on the eve of tomorrow's vote that may end his 10-year reign as board chairman of the NAACP.Sources at NAACP headquarters in Baltimore tell me that Dr. Gibson is trying desperately to prevent the board from learning lTC the exact amounts of his credit-card transactions; about plane tickets for his female companion paid for by the NAACP, or about the $126,000 limousine bill that the NAACP ran up between November 1993 and January 1995.

Carroll County public schools should strengthen financial controls and network security, seek all valid Medicaid-related reimbursements, review some of their contractor arrangements and re-evaluate their food service operations, according to a report released by the state Office of Legislative Audits. Those measures could save the county as much as $4 million a year, said the report released last week. "These are recommendations," said Bruce A. Myers, legislative auditor. "We have no enforcement power, but we can advise.

State auditors have questioned $88,000 in claims paid to health care providers by the Family Health Administration in the last two fiscal years. The auditors said in a report made public Tuesday that the FHA, which provides health care services to at-risk communities, did not adequately make sure claims were legitimate. For instance, from January 2008 to July 2009 the agency paid for several medical procedures that were considered questionable because records show accompanying care, such as anesthesia, was not provided.

State officials placed at least 32 children in foster homes despite credible evidence that the care providers had abused or neglected children, according to a General Assembly audit released Friday. Auditors found that officials with the Social Services Administration also failed to follow up on 159 children born to parents who had had their parental rights terminated for abuse or neglect. The auditors blamed the computer system that the Maryland agency uses to monitor child services and said many of the deficiencies had not been corrected.

Maryland Transportation Secretary Beverley K. Swaim-Staley told state lawmakers Tuesday that internal auditors knew about some irregularities in the awarding of contracts by the State Highway Administration but didn't raise an alarm. The transportation chief went before the General Assembly's Joint Committee on Audits to respond to two reports this year that identified ethical lapses and violations of contracting rules in one of the largest agencies of state government. Swaim-Staley said she is moving aggressively to change a culture at the SHA that put getting work done above abiding by the state's procurement laws.

The State Highway Administration repeatedly requested new contracts from the Board of Public Works while concealing that millions of dollars remained unspent from previous awards for the same work, according to legislative auditors. A new report by the Office of Legislative Audits, released Friday, comes after a scathing audit last summer outlined a "revolving door" relationship between the highway agency and its contractors. The audit led to significant management changes at the highway administration, including the departure of senior officials.

With uncertainty looming about USAir's ability to win crucial labor concessions, company auditors for the first time have raised questions about whether the airline can survive.After a two-week delay, USAir Group Inc. filed its year-end financial report yesterday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in which the company's accountants concluded there was "substantial doubt" whether the airline could continue operating in its current form.Since 1988, the airline has lost more than $3 billion, including $684.

State police will allow county auditors to examine investigative files that the Carroll County Narcotics Task Force has been withholding, a high-ranking police official said yesterday.In a move designed to end the nearly yearlong audit of the drug task force, Maj. John P. Cook last week told county internal auditors they may examine the files of closed investigations."I hope this chapter will pretty well come to an end," Major Cook said yesterday. His decision allows auditors access to some of the files Carroll State's Attorney Thomas E. Hickman had placed off-limits two months ago. "We want them to understand how we do this.

The president of Baltimore City Community College says she's "completely perplexed" by a recently released state audit that questions the circumstances around a $200,000 payment to the college. President Carolane Williams said the 2009 payment, from the college's landlord at the Maryland BioPark in West Baltimore, was always intended as a gift to support BCCC's involvement with the facility. The audit, released Wednesday, said the circumstances of the payment were questionable, because the college referred to it in multiple documents as related to BCCC's lease agreement with Wexford Science & Technology.

Baltimore City Community College received a $200,000 payment under "potentially questionable" circumstances from a company that was leasing it space, according to a state legislative audit released Wednesday. The matter has been referred to the attorney general's office for further review. The inquiry is the latest trouble for an institution that is battling to keep its accreditation and to build healthier relations between faculty and top administrators. The college says the $200,000 payment was a "contribution" from its landlord at the Maryland BioPark in West Baltimore.

Eight Maryland businesses approved for $34 million in tax credits for job creation from 2007 to 2010 failed to document their project or startup costs, a legislative audit of the state's economic development agency has found. An audit of the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development released Tuesday also found that the agency had failed to recover a $250,000 investment in a technology company that moved out of state less than a year after getting a loan to create jobs in Maryland.

A Maryland corrections division that provides inmate labor has backed out of a data entry contract with the health department after state auditors found that prisoners had access to some patients' personal information, which was supposed to have been redacted from documents, but occasionally wasn't. The findings were included in a Legislative Services report made public Tuesday, three months after Maryland Correctional Enterprises, an industry arm of the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, ceased providing the services to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

It's just an ordinary phone, the hotline that tips the state of Maryland's bloodhounds that something's amiss in one of the agencies. It isn't red, there are no special bells and whistles, but it does get answered. And when it does, it can set off a chain of events that can topple long-entrenched bureaucrats and even — in extreme cases — put people in jail. The number of the hotline is 1-877-FRAUD-11 — or 1-877-372-8311 if you prefer. Along with its online counterpart, the phone number connects callers with the Office of Legislative Audits, an independent agency that serves as the General Assembly's check on fraud and waste in state agencies.

Maryland Transportation Secretary Beverley K. Swaim-Staley told state lawmakers Tuesday that internal auditors knew about some irregularities in the awarding of contracts by the State Highway Administration but didn't raise an alarm. The transportation chief went before the General Assembly's Joint Committee on Audits to respond to two reports this year that identified ethical lapses and violations of contracting rules in one of the largest agencies of state government. Swaim-Staley said she is moving aggressively to change a culture at the SHA that put getting work done above abiding by the state's procurement laws.

Responding to a bleak auditors' assessment, USAir Group Inc. has said it expects to finish 1995 with more than $400 million in cash and that it "has not hired bankruptcy counsel, nor does it intend to do so."In the company's year-end filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, auditors for the Arlington, Va.-based airline expressed "substantial doubt" that the financially struggling airline could continue operating in its current form.But the airline, in a separate filing made later that day, insisted it had enough funds for normal operations through 1995, "barring unanticipated events," and has not hired a bankruptcy attorney.

WASHINGTON -- Special Iran-contra prosecutor Lawrence E. Walsh, already under sharp criticism for the high costs of his prolonged investigation, drew a new complaint yesterday from government auditors over his personal expenses.The General Accounting Office, although not saying that Mr. Walsh intentionally broke any laws or rules, found that he had charged the government $78,000 more than federal law allows for room and board in Washington and while traveling.Mr. Walsh got $95 a day for a room at Washington's famous Watergate Hotel, even when he did not stay in the room, and that was wrong even if he could claim some room rent here, the audit report said.

The State Highway Administration repeatedly requested new contracts from the Board of Public Works while concealing that millions of dollars remained unspent from previous awards for the same work, according to legislative auditors. A new report by the Office of Legislative Audits, released Friday, comes after a scathing audit last summer outlined a "revolving door" relationship between the highway agency and its contractors. The audit led to significant management changes at the highway administration, including the departure of senior officials.

A suspicious pattern of bidding on state grants for installing less-polluting septic systems — part of a wide-ranging critique of the Maryland Department of the Environment — has prompted legislative auditors to call for a criminal investigation. In a report released Thursday, auditors found a series of fiscal, management and regulatory problems at the agency, including potential violations of state law for hiring a retiring employee as a consultant. The audit also faulted the department's handling of a computer system upgrade and oversight of construction sites, hazardous-materials facilities and rental housing containing lead paint.