It has no office or employees and its board meets only once a year, but the Industrial Development Authority — a corporation run by Baltimore City’s finance department — saves taxpayers money, according to city officials.

The little-known city business entity was thrust into the spotlight Thursday, after Baltimore Circuit Court Clerk Frank Conaway refused to sign documents needed to transfer a portion of the city’s Quarantine Road landfill to the business.

Surprisingly few elected city officials say they have heard of the corporation, which has a $100 million “revolving fund” of bonds and whose six-member board meets “as needed,” according to Stanley Milesky, the city’s chief of treasury management.

“It’s an instrument of the city,” Milesky said. “It’s not something that’s widely used. But it’s not like it’s a secret.”

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On Wednesday, Conaway received a letter from city Treasury Manager Stephen Kraus asking him to sign off on a two-page document about the landfill transfer.

Conaway refused to sign, arguing that Mayor Sheila Dixon wasn’t legally mayor because she had Gov. Martin O’Malley swear her in instead of Conaway, who usually swears in the city’s elected officials.

City Solicitor George Nilson said Friday if Conaway refuses to sign the documents, which certify that Dixon was sworn in, Nilson will do so himself.

Nilson said any city official can certify that Dixon is mayor if he or she attended the swearing-in ceremony.

“He has an exalted view of his importance,” Nilson said of Conaway. “I think he's playing games.”

But Conaway may have stumbled upon a suspicious deal, according to Arnold Jolivet, president of the American Minority Contractors and Business Association.

He said city-owned properties are moved into the IDA to allow the city to evade stricter contracting rules.

“Once you get a project into a private entity, you are free from the constraints of the city charter, like awarding to the lowest bidder,” Jolivet said.

Transferring a piece of the landfill, from which the city will sell $200,000 worth of methane annually to the U.S. Coast Guard, may help a favored contractor, he said.

“People are watching this project,” he said.

But Milesky said there is nothing suspicious about the IDA, which he said gets the city lower interest rates on bonds.

Milesky said the corporation is useful for “things we don’t recognize the need to take to the voters.”

Industrial Development Authorities in other areas, such as Carroll County, also are not required to award contracts to the lowest bidder.

But, Milesky said, “We do a bid process here. We like to keep it transparent.”

lbroadwater@baltimoreexaminer.com

sjanis@baltimoreexaminer.com