Baltimore’s Office of the Inspector General found that the city’s Fire Department paid more than $30,000 in retroactive promotion raises for time employees had not yet worked in their new positions, according to findings released Oct. 14, 2026. The department’s longstanding practice was to date some raises to when a job became vacant, rather than when the promoted employee started doing the job. The review focused on 2024 promotions to pump operator and emergency vehicle driver positions and examined 427 promotions made from January 2020 through April 2025. The watchdog found that limited applicant pools sometimes depleted promotion lists, leaving positions vacant for extended periods. The department then used overtime or acting-out-of-title assignments to cover the work. Fire Chief said the city could end up paying overtime to cover a vacancy and later paying retroactive wages to the person promoted into it, even if that employee had not been qualified for the job during the vacancy. Union agreements do not specifically require the retroactive-pay system, the report found. A union representative told investigators that keeping promotion lists active could help fill vacancies sooner and avoid lengthy backpay periods. The practice had reportedly been in place for decades. The city’s payroll system added complications. After a new system was introduced in 2020, employees told investigators that retroactive payments became harder to process, and manual adjustments were eventually halted. A human resources chief told the watchdog, “No system exists that can execute BCFD’s promotional backpay process because it does not make sense.” The report said the payroll office discourages manual calculations and prefers transactions to run through its automated system. In an August 2025 letter to fire unions, the department called the practice unsustainable and said it had been discontinued. Promotions would receive raises only from the date employees took the new positions, the letter said. The inspector general characterized the payments as a waste of taxpayer money and referred the findings to the Department of Audits for further review.