The leadership of Baltimore’s Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture is working to iron out problems uncovered in an August 15 audit by the Maryland Department of Legislative Services, according to a report in the Baltimore Sun.
The audit uncovered serious irregularities. It found charges on the museum’s corporate credit card that were “without a readily apparent business purpose.” It found two instances in which payments were made to an employee’s PayPal account. A former employee was instructing visitors to pay him for parking personally, and keeping the cash. And the museum had a practice of pre-signing a number of blank checks for emergency purposes, and stored unsigned blank checks in an unsecured office.
Only a small amount of money, a total of $10,115, was unaccounted for between April 2021 and January 2025. The museum’s annual budget is $6.3 million.
The Lewis is a quasi-governmental stage agency, the only Baltimore museum to be classified as such, says the Sun, which notes that taxpayers provide up to half the museum’s annual budget, while most other Maryland cultural groups receive less than ten percent of their budget from taxpayer funds. In return, the institution undergoes a detailed annual budget analysis and state audits every four years.
In the 2025-26 fiscal year, the Lewis received $2.7 million in taxpayer support, up from $2 million in the 2022-23 fiscal year, notes the Sun. The museum has also increased private donations by 11 percent in the past three years.
Lewis president Terri L. Freeman and board chairman Drew Hawkins told the Sun that they have destroyed all pre-signed checks and now store checks in a safe in a locked office.
The audit also found that more than 9,000 objects in the museum’s collection have not been properly appraised, a requirement for insurance purposes. Auditors noted that this problem has been cited in audits dating back to 2013. Freeman tells the Sun that two interns are now at work assigning value to these objects.
“Of the 18 findings and recommendations raised in the audit, we have already implemented 12 of them,” Freeman told the paper. “Four are in progress, and two others have not yet started.”
Lewis Museum board president Terri Lee Freeman.
Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture
The employees who made the fraudulent charges and who pocketed parking fees are no longer working at the museum and were not identified in the report, and neither Freeman nor Lewis could tell the Sun whether theft investigations have concluded or if criminal charges were filed, though auditors’ findings of potential theft were referred to the Maryland Attorney General.
“I’m very troubled by the lack of accountability,” Republican state delegate Kathy Szeliga told the Sun. “They clearly got into big trouble with employees who were pocketing money. There obviously were very few controls. Having blank checks lying around and presigning checks is an invitation for fraud, especially with today’s virtual payment systems.”
Founded in 2005, the Lewis is a Smithsonian Institution affiliate and occupies an 82,000-square-foot downtown facility designed by architects Philip Freelon and Gary Bowden. Its collection numbers more than 11,000 objects spanning over 400 years, ranging from a piano played by jazz great Billie Holliday, a Baltimore native, to a doll and cradle once owned by a descendant of abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who spent parts of his life in the city.
The museum is named for the first African American to build a billion-dollar company, Beatrice Foods. In 1993, Forbes listed him as one of the 400 richest Americans, with a net worth of $400 million.
U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, said in a statement to the Sun that the museum is “an important cultural asset in Baltimore with a vital mission—chronicling the achievements and experiences of African-Americans in Maryland.”
“While the museum faced financial challenges in the past years,” he said, “as an agency supported in part by state taxpayer dollars, they must continue their efforts to demonstrate sound fiscal responsibility.”
