Reforming Prince George's

Prince George’s County Executive Rushern L. Baker III took office this year pledging to clean up the county’s reputation for government corruption and a “pay-to-play” culture that, if federal indictments are accurate, forced companies to offer officials bribes as a cost of doing business there. Among Mr. Baker’s first acts was to appoint a task force charged with recommending steps the county needed to take in order to restore its tarnished image and the public’s trust in government. This week that body spoke, and Mr. Baker and the Prince George’s County Council would do well to heed its advice. The task force, chaired by former Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke, urged Mr. Baker and county officials to create an independent inspector general’s office as a watchdog on county government. The new agency would be in addition to the County Council’s already existing Office of Audits and Investigations, which is appointed by the council and therefore has an inherent conflict of interest when its members are involved. The five-member Prince George's County Board of Ethics, a separate watchdog body appointed by the county executive and approved by the council, is nominally responsible for hearing and ruling on complaints of public corruption, but in practice it has little power to hold wrongdoers accountable. For one, it can’t act on its own but instead must wait for a formal complaint to be filed, even if it has reason to suspect government malfeasance. On top of that it lacks the power to subpoena witnesses, has no full-time staff, no regular meeting schedule and no budget. Nor does the county have a comprehensive ethics code that specifies what acts are prohibited.