Inspector General Advisory Board Meeting - February 11, 2026
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Inspector General Advisory Board Meeting - February 11, 2026
This meeting of the Howard County Inspector General Advisory Board was held virtually on February 11, 2026, at 6:30 PM. The primary agenda item was a presentation and discussion of the Office of Inspector General's proposed Fiscal Year 2027 budget. The board unanimously recommended that the proposed budget provides sufficient funding to meet the duties of the office.
Discussion Items
- Office of Inspector General Proposed FY2027 Budget Presentation: Inspector General Kelly Madigan presented the proposed budget for FY2027 (July 1, 2026 – June 30, 2027). The total proposed budget is approximately $799,083, with personnel costs at $764,383 (about 96% of the total). Key changes from the FY2026 placeholder budget include:
- Reclassification of the administrative assistant position to an investigator, increasing the investigative staff to four positions (IG, Deputy IG, Senior Analyst/Investigator, and one additional investigator). This reclassification is pending approval by the Office of Human Resources and the County Administrative Officer.
- Contractual services increased from $5,000 to $28,700, including a $7,000 subscription for the investigative tool CLEAR (Thomson Reuters), $3,000 for printing (posters, magnets, branding), $10,000 for conference and seminar fees (including AIG certification and continuing education), and $7,000 for training services.
- Supplies and materials increased from $3,000 to $5,000 for office supplies, plus a new line of $1,000 for subscriptions (e.g., digital subscriptions to The Post, The Sun, The Banner).
- A vehicle purchase is planned using $150,000 in salary savings from FY2026; the vehicle will be a standard fleet car (e.g., Toyota or Hyundai). The ongoing vehicle charge (mileage/maintenance) is set at $6,100 annually.
- Board members asked clarifying questions about salary ranges for new hires, membership dues for professional organizations (e.g., ACFE), and the vehicle purchase timeline. Madigan confirmed she will post for a Deputy IG within the next month and for investigators in late spring.
Key Outcomes
- Motion and Vote: Board Chair David Salem moved that the Inspector General Advisory Board determine that the Inspector General's proposed FY2027 budget provides sufficient funding to meet the duties of the office. Vice Chair Mitchell Stahm seconded. The motion passed unanimously with no abstentions or objections.
- Next Steps: The board will submit a letter to the County Executive and County Council reflecting the board's action and determination. The letter will be drafted by the chair and circulated to members before sending.
- Future Meeting: The next regular meeting is scheduled for March 5, 2026 (note: the transcript says March 5, 2005, but context indicates 2026), where the Inspector General will provide an update on activities since her start date of January 5, 2026.
Meeting Transcript
Okay. Okay. Good evening, everyone, and a happy and a belated happy new year to everyone. This is the February 5th, 2026 meeting of the Inspector General Advisory Board. This meeting is a virtual meeting, which is being conducted via WebEx's teleconference. It is also available to the public through live stream in the county council website. At this time, I'm going to do a roll call for the board members. Mr. Stom. Present. Miss Sidney. Present. Mr. Rashka. Rosen. Mr. Quisenberry. Present. Mr. Curry. Okay, so then we have a full house tonight. So thank you. We will now proceed with tonight's agenda. Our main discussion item tonight is a presentation of the Inspector General's proposed fiscal year 2027 budget. Just so board members are clear, the 2027 fiscal year for Howard County runs from July 1st, 2026 to June 30th, 2027. After we hear the Inspector General's presentation on her proposed budget, we will allow some time for discussion where board members can ask any questions they may have. After the discussion, we will recommend that we as a board will move forward with the proposed budget to the county executive for the fiscal year 2027. Are there any questions before we proceed? Okay, seeing none then, I'll now turn it over to the Inspector General Kelly Madigan for her presentation. Welcome, Miss Madigan. We are glad to have you in the position of Inspector General. The floor is yours. Thank you so much. Yeah, I'm really happy to be here and thank you again so much for the opportunity to be Howard County's first inspector general. I'm gonna start by sharing my screen with this proposed budget. And I'm kind of gonna walk through line by line as to what it was. So I started um January 5th, and in terms of budget timing, I was a little behind the ball. I'm very appreciative to Howard County's budget staff that had put together a preliminary budget for 26 and um kind of some placeholders, if you will, for 27. Um so I have spent a majority of my time kind of working with both the budget analyst, the deputy, and the director for budget, asking a lot of questions, trying to establish new lines to come up with what I think is a um very good realistic and low cost um budget for the office. So I'm gonna kind of walk through it line by line, starting first. Um the lines in light blue are summary of the um lines beneath. So how the budget process works is 7900 out of the general fund is um the money allotted to the Office of the Inspector General within that fund of approximately 799,000 zero eighty-three, which is proposed for FY27. The lines are broken up into various different categories. The first of which is personnel. The personnel costs, as you can see for FY27, are proposed to be uh 764,383. That is column D. Column B is the what was the approved budget for 26. So you'll see that um column B for 26 is 471-243. And um forward, I am proposing that that number be 764383. The reason for that increase is uh a couple of different reasons, um, which I'm gonna explain.
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