When Baltimore’s watchdog requested heat illness information from the city’s Office of Risk Management and the Department of Public Works she got two very different sets of numbers.
In her report, Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming wrote that she received reports back from city Risk Management, part of the finance department, via the city’s third-party workman’s compensation administrator. The request was for heat-related illnesses from January 2021- July 2024.
Risk Management reported 26 incidents during that time whereas DPW turned in a spreadsheet with only 16 employee-reported incidents, effectively underreporting 40% of all recent heat illnesses.
It’s part of an investigation into the conditions around the death of sanitation worker Ronald Silver II, who died of heat sickness while collecting garbage for the city in August, and other sub-par working conditions at DPW facilities that the OIG has detailed in numerous reports. Those conditions include a lack of working air-conditioning during the summer, no access to water or Gatorade for workers, alongside a culture of bullying and harassment by supervisors.
“Among the ten illnesses omitted, the employees reported descriptions that included various instances of lightheadedness, dehydration, blacking out due to heat, dizziness and vomiting, heat stroke, fainting, chaffing due to excessive heat, and cramping. Six of the ten employee-reported illnesses that were not found on DPW’s spreadsheet occurred on days when temperatures reached 90℉ or higher, with two that occurred on a 103℉ day,” wrote Cumming in her report, which was released Tuesday.
So, how did this discrepancy happen?
Both agencies get their information from the city’s third-party vendor, Sedgwick Claims Management, which processes workman’s compensation claims.
In his response to the OIG, DPW Director Khalil Zaied said the errors were due to staffers misinterpreting data in columns on the spreadsheets.
“If that [heat illness] was not explicitly stated on the report, it was omitted as staff believed that was the official determination by Mercy Hospital as to the cause of the illness,” wrote Zaied.
The spreadsheets themselves could not be made public to multiple ongoing investigations but in her report, Cumming wrote that six of the omitted incidents were labeled as “syncope.” Syncope is a more scientific term for fainting and there are several types, including heat syncope, according to the Korey Stringer Institute at the University of Connecticut.
“I want to be clear that this should not have occurred. We should have provided the information as received from Sedgwick without omission,” wrote Zaied in his response. The DPW director said that after speaking with staffers he does “not believe there was an attempt to obstruct or obfuscate.”
In an interview with WYPR, Cumming said she was glad to see the director take accountability for the mishap. In her report she expressed concern that the omitted data could hinder investigations by the Maryland Occupational Safety and Health and the law firm that recently conducted a third-party audit of DPW working conditions.
Zaied wrote back, “At this time MOSH did not ask DPW for this type of report or information.”