She’s taken on some of Baltimore’s top political officials, and now she’s ready to take on a second term.

This week, Baltimore Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming made official a request that none of her predecessors could: She asked her independent board to keep her on the job when her term expires this year.

“I will not hesitate to tell the truth and to fight,” Cumming told The Baltimore Sun in an exclusive interview. “I think the people actually respect that.”

In Baltimore, where the inspector general has long operated under the thumb of the mayor, Cumming finds herself in a novel position. Created in 2005 by then-Mayor Martin O’Malley, Baltimore’s inspector general role was intended to be an independent, internal watchdog to investigate city operations. The position, however, traditionally has had little practical power to do so. Answering to the mayor-appointed solicitor, Cumming’s predecessors faced political pressure. Several were pushed out by mayors. Others left because they lacked independence.

That position changed in 2018 when voters approved a charter amendment granting the office independent authority. Moving forward, inspectors general would serve six-year terms (purposefully longer than the four-year mayoral term) and answer to a board.

That freedom has cleared the way for some headline-making investigations. Cumming, who was named to the job in 2018 by then-Mayor Catherine Pugh and is the first woman to hold the post, has issued dozens of reports detailing ballooning costs, wasteful spending, wage theft and city vendors failing to live up to contracts.

A scathing report, issued jointly by Cumming’s office and Baltimore County Inspector General Kelly Madigan in 2020, found the city and county had jointly lost millions of dollars in water and sewer revenue despite spending more than $133 million to address ongoing problems. The nine-month investigation found tens of thousands of digital water meters in both municipalities were not fully functional.

Cumming has also taken on the organizational culture within City Hall. Some of her earliest reports shed light on a “culture of fear” in the city’s human resources department and what she said was a “toxic” culture perpetuated by the city’s former head of the Department of Transportation.

No investigation made bigger waves, however, than Cumming’s probe of former State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby. Mosby herself requested the scrutiny in 2020 amid questions raised by the media about her trips abroad and revelations that she formed travel and hospitality companies while in office. In 2021, Cumming went public with her findings showing Mosby was absent from Baltimore for 144 workdays in 2018 and 2019, but disclosed 85 on her state ethics forms. Cumming referred parts of her probe to the Maryland State Ethics Commission and federal investigators.

Mosby fired back, demanding via attorneys that the inspector general correct “misstatements and inaccuracies” in the report. The Baltimore chapter of the NAACP publicly questioned Cumming’s objectivity and suggested that she had unfairly targeted Black officials and vendors. One month later, a federal probe into both the state’s attorney and her husband, Council President Nick Mosby, became public. When federal investigators visited Nick Mosby at his City Hall office in March 2021, surveillance video showed Cumming leading them into the building.

Marilyn Mosby was charged and convicted earlier this year of perjury and mortgage fraud. Nick Mosby has not been charged.

Cumming dismissed criticisms that her investigation was politically or racially motivated.

“There was no truth to it,” she said. “I’m really very independent. I don’t like politics. I just do my job.”

Cumming cited the Mosby probe as one of the most important of her tenure, in part because the backlash proved the need to restructure the board overseeing the inspector general’s office, she said.

The board, which was hastily convened for the first time after the Mosby probe, included several elected officials or their designees. Political machinations in the aftermath of the Mosby investigation pushed the City Council to make a change. With approval of a new charter amendment in 2022, the board now includes seven members selected by the council, two from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners or the Association of Certified Public Accountants and the deans of two area law schools.

“What’s always been most important is that the office will continue well beyond me,” Cumming said. “The fact that very important laws changed to make the office stronger will in the end be one of my biggest achievements. To have a strong office of the inspector general means you’ll have better government.”

That board will ultimately decide whether Cumming stays. She said she notified board leaders of her intention to stay via a letter delivered this week.

Madigan, Baltimore County’s inspector general, said Cumming has navigated the criticisms that come with holding the office and managed to elevate the work. Effective inspectors general find the balance between saying enough to put the office’s efforts in the spotlight and not saying so much that an investigation would be compromised, she said.

“That’s why it’s so important that IGs are independent,” Madigan said. “It’s not that you don’t fret about the decisions you make, but you have the freedom to make those decisions.”

In recent months, Cumming has zeroed in on a new target. In July, her office released a report detailing a lack of provisions to keep laborers cool at the Department of Public Works’ Cherry Hill facility. She noted broken ice machines, a cold-water faucet running hot water and a non-functioning heating and air conditioning system in the locker room.

A follow-up report issued several weeks later found similar issues at other DPW facilities. The reports noted many city trucks that laborers rode in lacked air conditioning. In some cases, provisions like Gatorade and toilet paper for employees were stored behind locked doors.

The reports, delivered as summer temperatures soared, proved timely. On Aug. 2, Ronald Silver II, a 36-year-old DPW employee, died on the job after succumbing to the heat. Silver’s death coupled with Cumming’s devastating reports led to calls for reform from the City Council, union officials and the public. The City Council held a hearing on the subject Thursday, expressing exasperation. Mayor Brandon Scott, who has acknowledged a toxic culture exists, has maintained that his administration’s investments in facility improvements are a critical step toward rectifying the situation.

Cumming was visibly passionate when she spoke to The Sun about the investigation. DPW was scrutinized before by the inspector general’s office in 2019, she noted, and conditions have only worsened.

“The fact that it was allowed by so many to get so much worse, shame on all of us,” she said. “Shame on the administration. Shame on the union. Shame on all of us.”

Cumming, who has a team of investigators in her office, personally investigated some of the DPW case, touring DPW facilities to see conditions for herself. It wasn’t the first time the inspector general has gotten her hands dirty, and if granted a second term, is unlikely to be the last.

Ronald Weich, dean of the law school at Seton Hall who formerly served on the inspector general’s board when he was dean of the University of Baltimore School of Law, said Cumming’s work during her first term clearly warrants a second.

“She has done important work to root out waste, fraud and abuse,” he said. “She’s done a good job establishing the independence of the office, and she brings to the job the highest integrity and a strong reputation.”

Of her agenda for the next six years, Cumming said city residents should expect more of the same.

“It won’t be any different. I have no aspirations to do anything other than the job I have,” she said. “I love my job. I love the city. I love what I do.”