Gov. Hogan questions O'Malley's post-gubernatorial furniture purchase
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley has come under fire from his successor and prompted the state to look more closely at its policies after his family purchased furniture from the governor's mansion at a heavily discounted rate.
The Baltimore Sun reported over the weekend that when O'Malley left office in 2015 his family purchased 54 items from the mansion including sofas, armoires, lamps and more. The furniture cost taxpayers $62,000, according to documents obtained by the sun, but the family paid just $9,638 for the items.
The items were discounted under a depreciation formula created by the former director of the Annapolis Capital Complex after it was declared as excess property. State-owned excess property can be given to other state agencies, donated to charities, sold at auction or thrown out, the Sun reported. The state is supposed to seek the maximum value for any items it sales through competitive bids or a public auction, and government officials aren't supposed to get preferential treatment in getting property.
The furniture sale came under question when a state attorney asked the Maryland ethics commission to determine outgoing public officials can buy excess furniture. Officials told the Washington Post Monday that the attorney was simply seeking clarification on state policy and that O'Malley is not subject to an ethics investigation.
In the letter to the Maryland State Ethics Commission, the attorney, Turhan E. Robinson, asks only general questions about whether the Department of General Services (DGS) can sell furniture to a governor without seeking other bids and does not ask for a review of previous furniture purchases by O'Malley and former Maryland Gov. Bob Ehrlich. A copy of the letter was provided to CBS News by the O'Malley campaign.
John Griffin, the governor's former spokesman, told both papers that the furniture the O'Malley family bought was determined to be old and was about to be "junked." A spokeswoman for the Department of General Services, which handles excess furniture, said O'Malley's wife initiated the process of getting the furniture declared as excess.
O'Malley, a Democrat, is currently vying to be the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee.
Maryland's current governor, Republican Larry Hogan, ripped into O'Malley on Facebook over the weekend.
"If they call that expensive, beautiful, barely used furniture 'junk', I'd hate to hear what they call the 20 year old stuff I brought with me from my house to replace it all," he wrote in a Facebook post Sunday. "And if it was so bad and ready to be 'thrown out', why would you try so hard to take all with you to your new house?"
In a statement, Griffin said the O'Malley family "deferred to DGS authority and followed their protocol and standard operating procedure that was consistent with at least one prior administration."
Ehrlich, O'Malley's Republican predecessor, paid $992 for 21 items the state had purchased at a cost of $9,904, according to the Sun. The items were mostly linens, mattresses, pillows, lamps and the bunk beds his two sons had used.
"The letter sent Friday shows clearly that this is an intergovernmental procedural policy issue," Griffin said.
Hogan doubled down Monday, writing in another post, "Just to set the record straight, none of the 54 pieces of furniture included in the investigation was 'junk'. None of it would have been 'thrown out', or surplussed, or sold in any manner. Had it not all been removed a few days before we moved in, our intention would have been to leave all of it in place, just as it was, in the people's house."
O'Malley is not the first governor to purchase excess furniture. His predecessor, former Republican Gov. Bob Ehrlich, paid $992 for 21 items the state had purchased at a cost of $9,904, according to the Sun. The items were mostly linens, mattresses, pillows, lamps and the bunk beds his two sons had used.
Another former governor, Democrat Parris Glendening, told the Sun that he didn't even know he could have purchased anything.