Baltimore County did not notify its County Council last year about a confidential settlement totaling more than $86,000 despite a law that requires council members be provided a list of settlements annually.
The settlement resolved a 2019 claim by firefighter Philip Tirabassi, who sought to transfer retirement credits from his service in the city to his county pension after he missed a deadline.
The county confirmed the payment in response to questions from The Baltimore Sun and a lawsuit filed by former county administrator Fred Homan alleging the county is violating the Maryland Public Information Act by charging hefty fees and withholding documents, including the terms of the settlement.
The law requires the county Office of Law to provide council members a list of settlement amounts “for each claim or case in which the county or an employee is a party for the year the report is due.”
The payment was not included, nor was its cost factored into the total amount paid out last year in a list of settlements the county law office provided to The Baltimore Sun and the County Council earlier this year.
Council members said they either weren’t or don’t recall being notified about the settlement when it occurred last year; they have since been briefed.
The county reported settling 250 claims last year, agreeing to pay at least $2.6 million, according to the settlement list provided by the law office. Another list shows the county paid at least $9.2 million last year on settlements.
Council chair Julian Jones, who last year co-sponsored a bill mandating settlement disclosure, said he is considering strengthening the law with more stringent reporting requirements.
“The question I have is, how many more [settlements] are there that do we not know about?” Jones said.
Homan, the former county administrator, filed a lawsuit earlier this year after requesting access to records related to Tirabassi’s settlement.
Transferring Tirabassi’s service time would have entitled him to a one-time payment of roughly $250,000 when he retired, according to the lawsuit; instead, the county paid $86,000 out of the county’s general liability fund for a “confidential settlement agreement.”
Councilwoman Cathy Bevins said she only learned about the settlement recently. She used the example of county contracts for goods and services as a parallel for the settlement. If contracts are more than $25,000, they require council approval; if a settlement exceeds $25,000, she said, the council should be notified.
“I don’t want to say” the payment was improper, said Bevins, a Middle River Democrat. “I would say that I was told after the fact. I don’t know who else knew about it.”
Asked to justify the payment, county spokesman Sean Naron said the county “has a right to settle matters filed against the county.”
“As the legal matter brought by Mr. Tirabassi concerned sensitive, personal information, the Office of Law determined in this instance the settlement should be confidential,” Naron wrote in an emailed response.
“Each matter is reviewed on a case-by-case basis and depends on the subject matter of the case,” he added.
The law office wouldn’t say why it did not include the case on its list.
Jones said he didn’t think the county broke the settlement disclosure law because nothing in the bill explicitly compels the county to release information about settlements paid as part of lawsuits.
It’s not the first time the county has withheld information about settlement spending from elected officials. In 2016, council members admonished the late County Executive Kevin Kamenetz’ administration for failing to disclose a $1.5 million settlement to the mother of Christopher Brown, who was killed in 2012 in an altercation with county police Officer James Laboard.
Council members at the time called for more transparency. In Baltimore City, legal settlements exceeding $25,000 require the approval of the Board of Estimates.
Councilman David Marks, a Perry Hall Republican, said he couldn’t remember whether he was told about the settlement with Tirabassi. He added that the county law office is better at briefing council members on legal matters than it did under Kamenetz.
“The county attorney has been very forthright with us in disclosing settlements,” he said.
Calling the matter a legal issue, Republican councilman Todd Crandell declined to comment. After the county withheld the cost of the 2016 police settlement, Crandell said the public expects the council to tell them how the county spends taxpayer dollars.
Baltimore Sun reporter Alison Knezevich contributed to this article.
