Baltimore’s inspector general again finds DPW is fudging numbers

For the second time this month, the Department of Public Works has admitted to providing erroneous information to Baltimore Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming in connection with her investigation into working conditions at the agency’s Bureau of Solid Waste.

For the first time, this included the number of sanitation workers who took a city-provided training course to understand the Workday computer system and master the knowledge needed to apply for benefits and handle other important employee issues.

DPW told Cumming that 56% of the class participants, or 39 workers, came from solid waste. After Cumming asked for the names of the participants, DPW confirmed this claim one solid waste worker he actually signed up.

The agency blamed the distortion on “spreadsheet misinterpretation.”

In a report released today, Cumming said her office asked DPW for all reported cases of heat-related occupational illnesses between January 2021 and July 2024. The agency submitted a spreadsheet listing 16 cases.

Cumming requested the same information from Risk Management, the financial department that handles workers’ compensation matters.

Risk Management provided data showing 26 heat-related illnesses, an increase of approximately 40%.

Both agencies relied on the same information from Sedgwick Claims Management, a third-party vendor that handles disability claims in the city.

So what made the difference?

Cumming’s staff discovered that the column numbers in the DPW spreadsheet were not sequential and “it appeared that some rows had been deleted before being submitted to the OIG,” she wrote.

The omitted columns concerned illnesses directly related to Cumming’s ongoing investigation into poor working conditions at DPW sanitation stations, which included a lack of cold water or Gatorade distributed to crews before departure, broken sinks and air conditioners, and, on the one hand, toilet paper at the facility was reluctantly rationed employees.

“I believe staff wanted to provide the most accurate information possible and found Sedgwick’s information to be inaccurate,” DPW Director Khalil Zaied.

“Among the 10 missed illnesses, workers reported descriptions that included various cases of dizziness, dehydration, heat fainting, dizziness and vomiting, heat stroke, fainting, heat abrasions, and cramps,” he reports.

In six cases of the disease NO According to DPW, they occurred on days “when temperatures reached 30°F or above, and two of them occurred on a day when the temperature was 30°F,” the report said.

“Correcting” inaccurate data

In a formal response to Cumming’s report, DPW Director Khalil Zaied said no attempt was made to “obstruct or obfuscate.”

Instead, “I believe the staff wanted to provide the most accurate information possible, but felt the information from Sedgwick was inaccurate,” Zaied said, offering the following explanation:

“Without a doubt, when DPW staff received Sedgwick’s report on heat-related illnesses, they noted and omitted cases that they believed were originally described as heat-related, but upon review found that they were not. Specifically, they used the classifications in columns K and L of the report to determine whether the illness was heat-related. “If it was not expressly stated in the report, it was omitted because staff believed it was Mercy Hospital’s (where injured city workers are treated) official determination of the cause of the illness.”

“I want to make it clear that something like this should not have happened,” Zaied continued.

“We should have passed on the information we received from Sedgwick without omission,” he wrote. “All interested parties have been advised that the report should be submitted without omissions and that every effort should be made in the future to ensure that we take full responsibility for requests for information.”

Cumming called DPW’s negligence “concerning,” especially if the same incomplete information was provided to the Maryland Occupational Safety and Health Administration (MOSH), which is investigating the death of Ronald Silver II, a sanitation worker who he fell on his garbage route August 2 and died of hyperthermia.

Removing information about heat-related illnesses “could complicate numerous investigations,” Cumming noted, saying she had forwarded her detailed findings “to law enforcement agencies for further review.”