David McClintock steps down as Baltimore inspector general after uncovering City Hall VoIP controversy

Months after stirring up a major controversy in City Hall, Baltimore’s Inspector General David N. McClintock has left Baltimore city government to pursue “a new opportunity in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana,” according to an announcement from the mayor’s office at the end of January.

As inspector general, it was McClintock who led the investigation into the city’s purchase of almost $700,000 worth of VoIP phones and equipment. As Technically Baltimore reported in October, McClintock’s report showed that “the Rawlings-Blake administration’s purchase of nearly $675,000 in phone and computer equipment found possible conflicts of interest and missed opportunities for ‘significant cost savings.’ ”
According to the Baltimore Brew, the Jefferson Parish’s office of inspector general is an independent one, unlike the inspector general office in Baltimore city.
From the Brew:

In Baltimore, the Office of the Inspector General was created in 2005 by mayoral order (by then-Mayor Martin O’Malley). This allows a mayor to dismiss the person holding the job at any time and making the agency’s budget dependent on the annual budget votes of the Board of Estimates and City Council. [more]

Read the full story at the Baltimore Brew.