Baltimore Inspector General Isabel Cumming’s office issued a scathing report on deplorable working conditions at Department of Public Works facilities, the second such report, putting the mayor on defense about his administration’s efforts to improve DPW facilities.

Cumming’s report detailed sanitation workers made to use locker rooms without air conditioning or working water fountains during periods of extreme heat; bathrooms with sink fixtures that had been broken for months; and garbage trucks with no working air conditioning or dashboard lights. At one facility, on Bowley’s Lane, workers had to ask a supervisor for toilet paper every time they wished to use the bathroom — the supervisor there kept it locked in a supply closet.

“These conditions would not have existed in City Hall for longer than 24 hours,” Cumming said in an interview. “These are essential workers and we need to make their working conditions better.”

At a DPW warehouse on South Kresson Street, the city has had to rent portable bathrooms because the one in the warehouse doesn’t work — employees boarded it up.

Cumming’s office referenced an independent engineers’ report on flaws at these facilities that was sent to DPW officials in March. In Tuesday’s report, Cumming noted some of the things the engineers observed then are still broken. For example, at the Cherry Hill Western Sanitation Yard the HVAC system was reported as having been unreliable since November. All four bathroom sinks only dispensed hot water, regardless of which was turned on. One of the sinks had a missing handle that was documented in March — the handle was still missing in July.

The conditions at the Cherry Hill site were also called into question in a July 10 report from Cumming, which detailed how workers had little access to cold water and no air conditioning during the heatwave that torched the mid-Atlantic. On a visit to Cherry Hill, Cumming found a large bucket with a few warm plastic water bottles and box full of ice machine parts that hadn’t been installed. Inspectors did not encounter a single working water fountain.

A trailer meant to serve as a cooling station was also out of commission — its HVAC system was broken. Instead, there were three temporary AC units, but only one was plugged in to prevent overloading the trailer’s electrical system.

At a news conference Wednesday, Scott acknowledged the poor conditions, but said his administration had taken steps to keep people safe, like purchasing Gatorade and bottled water.

Scott, who is in the fourth year of his first term as mayor and was handily reelected to a second, said the conditions Cumming found are the consequences of decades of disinvestment in city facilities.

“We are talking about facilities that have had zero, zilch, nada investment,” he said. “And now you have an administration that’s actually going to be building new ones so that they can have the quality facilities that they deserve.”

Scott earmarked $20 million to rebuild some DPW facilities in July 2022, including the Cherry Hill and Bowley’s Lane sites. Designs for the new facilities are expected be completed in early 2025, and construction should begin a year later, a spokesperson for Scott’s office said.

“What you’ll never get from me is a stopgap,” Scott said. “You’ll never get a ‘we’re going to do this now and pass the buck.’ We’re going to pull the band aid off and actually build the facilities that our workers deserve and not just consistently patch up buildings that are long past their life cycle.”

City Administrator Faith Leach visited facilities with Cumming Tuesday morning and found “many of the issues” highlighted in the July 10 report have been addressed, Scott said.

He also defended the lack of working air conditioning at some facilities, saying strained HVAC systems are unavoidable in consecutive days of extreme heat. Scott said the Department of Public Works “always” ensures that employees have Gatorade available to replenish electrolytes.

On July 16, when the temperature hit a record 104 degrees, Cumming went to Cherry Hill and found that garbage crews had left for their routes without being given Gatorade or water. It wasn’t until a supervisor saw Cumming that they began filling up a trash bucket with ice and putting out drinks. Cumming herself handed out Gatorades to drivers still leaving the yard, the report said.

Perhaps no facility is in as poor shape as the one as the Eastern Sanitation Yard on Bowley’s Lane. The facility did not have air conditioning in the locker room, and many of the lockers were busted and unusable. Radiators for winter heat were broken. There were gaping holes in the bathroom walls. But most notable was the lack of toilet paper.

None of the stalls in the men’s restroom had toilet paper, with the holders either broken or empty, according to the report. An employee told Cumming that if they wished to use the bathroom, they had to ask for someone to unlock the supply closet and give it to them.

Banner reporter Adam Willis contributed to this article.