“Best practices” is a term we hear often in Baltimore City. Mayor Brandon Scott has long advocated for Baltimore to consider and implement best practices in a variety of areas, including his push to create a city administrator position and his ideas for how to reform the city’s Board of Estimates.

One place where we don’t hear that call, however, is in the Baltimore City Department of Audits, which is responsible for “improving government accountability” among city agencies. The Department of Audits exists under the purview of the Baltimore City comptroller, who is elected on a four-year term.

The stated goal of the Department of Audits is almost entirely aligned with that of the Baltimore City Office of the Inspector General. Yet, for some reason, the Department of Audits continues to live in the office of a politician rather than the city’s independent watchdog.

A similar structure exists in Baltimore County, where the auditor is beholden to the County Council instead of the inspector general. Though county law enables the inspector general and the county auditor to conduct “joint investigations and projects,” the auditor continues to serve at the pleasure of a panel of elected politicians.

You don’t have to look far to find examples of inspectors general conducting and overseeing audits. At the federal level, nearly all inspectors general are responsible for performing audits. Other large cities, such as Chicago, put that responsibility on their inspectors general as well. Generally speaking, inspectors general conducting audits is the rule, not the exception.

As far as best practices go, the Association of Inspectors General says in its guiding document that IGs should have the statutory power to conduct audits. But auditing is noticeably absent from the Baltimore City Charter’s section establishing the powers of the inspector general.

Moving Baltimore’s auditors to the Office of the Inspector General should not at all be seen as an indictment of the comptroller’s office. In fact, the city’s auditors have done excellent work in recent years, including a troubling audit of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement and its Safe Streets program and plenty of other worthy and transparent investigations.

Rather, such a move should be seen as an opportunity to better align the city’s independent watchdog with a team of auditors working toward a mutual goal — to rid the city of waste, fraud and abuse. Everyone can get on board with that. Taking the auditors out of a political office is simply an added bonus, but a significant one to signal investigative independence.

Also, it should be noted that both the comptroller and the inspector general sit on the Biennial Audits Oversight Commission, but only the comptroller has the direct authority to manage the city auditor and their team on a day-to-day basis.

Baltimore City Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming has demonstrated her ability to hold City Hall accountable. She’s done a stand-out job, and giving her office control of the Department of Audits would add another tool to her arsenal and grant her successors the ability to evaluate government spending and efficiency with a fine-tooth comb.

The idea of making government more effective and accountable is top-of-mind due to President Donald Trump and his adviser Elon Musk, who leads their government efficiency operation — though of course this editorial board has some suggestions for how they could do the job a lot better. The Department of Audits plays a critical role in government accountability at a local level. Empowering city auditors to do their jobs free of any possible political influence should be a nonpartisan issue.