The changes allowed the contractor to bill for nearly $43 million over its original bid, Inspector General Kelly Madigan said in her report released Wednesday.

The county Office of Information Technology contracted with Motorola Solutions in 2008, with council approval, to pay $2.6 million for radio equipment and parts for a 911 Center communication system.

The county extended the contract four times, starting in 2013 for $24.8 million, then for $28.7 million in 2017, and $45.1 million in 2019. In 2022, the county amended the contract for the fourth time, removing the provision that capped the amount of compensation.

Madigan said that with those actions, the county violated the County Charter and county rules on contract procurement.

There is no punishment or enforcement provision for the county’s failure to notify the council and violating contracting rules. Madigan said her 226-page report was meant to “highlight a breakdown in procedures, which are fundamental to the checks and balances that exist between the executive and legislative branches of county government.”

County Administrative Officer D’Andrea Walker acknowledged in a letter Monday to Madigan that the county’s failure to notify the council was an “oversight.” She said the administration would notify the council about the amendments within the next 30 days.

Also, employees within the county Division of Purchasing and Procurement will receive retraining next Thursday to “refresh buyers’ knowledge of the process and prevent this oversight in the future,” Walker said.

She added that “personnel actions regarding this investigation were taken, consistent with Baltimore County Human Resources policies.”

County spokesperson Erica Palmisano said she was unable to provide details about what actions were taken because it was a personnel matter.

Motorola Solutions administers the new computer-assisted dispatch system that the county’s public safety agencies rely on, as of last year, for 311 and 911 calls.

Madigan investigated after getting a complaint in January. It alleged performance issues with the system, and suggested the county might have been “better off,” she wrote, if the county hadn’t circumvented contract rules by granting Motorola a noncompetitive contract.

However, Madigan found that the county was within its rights to grant the company the contract in the first place. She also said Motorola didn’t do anything wrong during the process.

Her report didn’t identify the complainant and she declined to say who it was.

The county council must approve contracts that will run more than two years and are worth $25,000 or more, according to contract procurement policies.

The county can grant noncompetitive contracts if neither “competitive bidding nor competitive negotiations are feasible,” and can extend those contracts if it gives the council notice and the contract amendments do not substantially change the scope, duration or maximum compensation provided for the original services, according to the charter.

The fact the county did not notify the council of the 2013, 2017, 2019 or 2022 contract extensions or of the increased compensation deprived legislators of the “opportunity to make inquiries about these amendments,” according to Madigan’s report.

“From a practical standpoint, the notification failures deprived County Council of the opportunity to question three successive changes to a multimillion-dollar contract, each of which extended the term of the contract or increased the compensation that could be awarded to the vendor pursuant to the contract,” she said in a news release.

In 2021, the council admonished the Olszewski administration for failing to notify it that the county had agreed to a confidential settlement with a county firefighter, violating a 2020 law requiring the council be notified annually of any settlement agreements.