Maryland vital statistics agency lost track of ballooning project costs, audit finds

Racquel Bazos, Baltimore Sun on Mar 24, 2025

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The Maryland Vital Statistics Administration failed to properly monitor a project management vendor, allowing multimillion dollar costs to build up alongside major delays, according to a Department of Legislative Services audit released Monday.

The Vital Statistics Administration is a division of the Maryland Department of Health responsible for registering births and deaths and providing certified copies of birth, death and marriage certificates.

The project at issue, the Integrated Electronic Vital Records Registration System, began in 2019 and was expected to be completed in 2023. While three online systems that are part of IEVRRS are now available, according to the report, the project may not be finished until fiscal 2027, the report said.

“VSA did not adequately monitor the IEVRRS project management vendor and was unable to provide sufficient details justifying a $16 million (122%) increase to the project costs and a 4-year delay in the estimated project completion date,” auditor Brian S. Tanen wrote in a letter to state lawmakers prefacing the report.

The project is expected to create a system allowing web entry of births and deaths, importing of marriage and divorce certificates, support for retrieving and issuing certificates, and electronic transfer of files to the National Center for Health Statistics, among other upgrades.

Total project cost estimates are now $29.1 million, the report said, more than double its initial projected cost of $13.1 million. Vital Statistics didn’t have documentation to explain the increased cost and time needs, the report said. The administration didn’t track payments to the vendor, which were made by “several entities” like state health and IT departments.

On top of the growing costs and expanding deadlines, Vital Statistics “did not obtain support for amounts invoiced and paid to IEVRRS vendors,” the report found. In one example, the agency paid $1.6 million for unsubstantiated payroll billed by three different vendors. In another, it effectively paid a vendor $236 per hour when the contract specified a rate of $140 per hour, the report said.

Auditors recommended the agency monitor the IEVRRS project management vendor and coordinate payments to the firm with other state agencies. The report also recommended Vital Statistics ensure payments are in accordance with its contracts and recoup the money it overpaid or inappropriately paid.

Money coming into the agency also presented a problem, auditors found. Vital Statistics didn’t collect at least $376,000 in fees from local health departments issuing certified birth and death certificates between July and December 2023, the report said.

In calendar year 2024, the administration’s operating expenses were about $6.6 million, the audit said. Auditors wrote that between 2020 and 2024, vacancies at the agency ranged between 8.6% to 26.4%, potentially contributing to their findings.

The audit had cybersecurity concerns as well, but those findings were redacted from the public version of the report.

The Maryland Department of Health did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but its responses to the audit’s draft were included in as an appendix. It agreed to obtain more documentation from vendors, track payments and create new procedures to address the report’s findings. Local health departments have until March 31 to send past due payments, it wrote.

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