When the Office of the Inspector General requested data on heat-related illness within Baltimore’s Department of Public Works, officials sent two different sets of information, according to a letter Tuesday from Isabel Mercedes Cumming, the city’s inspector general.
The city’s Bureau of Risk Management worked with Baltimore’s third-party worker’s compensation administrator to produce the records, the OIG letter said, and found 26 heat-related illness reports between January 2021 and July 2024.
When the Department of Public Works sent over its records, it listed only 16 reports, the letter said.
Cumming wrote that the absence of information was “concerning,” especially if it meant that “the same incomplete information was provided to the Maryland Occupational Safety and Health and the law firm reviewing DPW’s heat standards.”
“Removing information could obstruct multiple investigations,” Cumming wrote, and said the matter has been turned over to law enforcement.
In a written response, DPW Director Khalil Zaied said that discrepancy “should not have occurred.” Zaied said he spoke with everyone involved in responding to the OIG’s request for information and that he does “not believe there was an attempt to obstruct or obfuscate.”
Zaied also said MOSH had not, as of Oct. 23, asked for the same information that Cumming’s office had. Instead, the state requested copies of OSHA 300 forms, which are used for reporting workplace injury, and which DPW had provided.
In an emailed statement Wednesday, the department said it “remains fully committed to transparency and accountability and will work closely with the OIG to ensure future submissions are accurate.”
What happened
Cumming said the OIG requested information on heat-related illness at DPW on July 25. That was before the heat-related death of Ronald Silver II, a sanitation worker who died on the job in August, but after the OIG had already raised concerns about broken air conditioning and other safety issues at DPW facilities during periods of extreme heat.
It was also a two days after Cumming’s office issued a report on conditions at DPW facilities, including trucks with broken air conditioning and employees who had to ask supervisors for access to toilet paper that was kept under lock and key.
The OIG got records from public works on Aug. 9, the letter said. It does not say when officials received records from risk management.
While reviewing the records from both agencies, investigators with the OIG realized the DPW report was missing 10 reports that were in the data from the Bureau of Risk Management. Column numbers on the spreadsheet from DPW “were not sequential, and some rows appeared to have been removed” before being sent to the OIG, according to the letter.
The omitted illnesses included reports from employees that experienced blacking out due to heat, dizziness, chaffing and more, according to the OIG letter. Six of the missing instances happened on days when temperatures reached 90 degrees or higher and two occurred on a 103 degree day.
According to Zaied’s letter, when DPW staff received a report from the third-party administrator, “they noted and omitted instances they believed were first described as heat-related but, upon evaluation, were not.”
Zaied wrote that staff omitted instances that were not “explicitly stated on the report” to have been connected to a heat-related illness.
“I believe the staff wanted to provide the most accurate information and thought the information from Sedgwick was inaccurate,” Zaied wrote. “All involved have been instructed that the report should have been submitted without omission and that, in the future, extra care should be taken to ensure we are fully responsive to requests for information.”
Last week, the city published a report probing working conditions at DPW in the wake of Silver’s death and broader complaints of a toxic work culture.
The report, from a Washington-based law firm, found DPW had no procedures for dealing with heat-related illness and confirmed a report of a toxic work culture where employees feared retaliation if they raised safety concerns.
In a memo attached to the report, City Administrator Faith Leach said the city government was already making progress on improving conditions, including by establishing an anonymous tip line for employees, implementing a Heat Illness Prevention Plan beginning summer 2025, and removing older trash trucks without air conditioning.
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