MAHONING VALLEY Trumbull lacks purchasing controls employed by other counties

By PEGGY SINKOVICH and STEPHEN SIFF
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- Employees in neighboring counties routinely check purchase orders against packing slips, and purchases are reviewed by people outside the department.
Not in Trumbull, where the prosecutor's office, investigators from the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation and state auditors have been looking into buying practices here after a series of Vindicator articles revealed a pattern of sloppy bookkeeping and excessive spending.
In Trumbull County, the authority to make routine purchases rests with department heads. They, or their underlings, decide what they need, fill out purchase orders and check to make sure they got what they are paying for.
Once a week, county commissioners sign authorizations listing thousands of bills, but no one other than department heads is directly charged with reviewing what they are for, commissioners say.
"We literally sign over 200,000 bills," said Commissioner Joseph J. Angelo Jr. "With those kinds of numbers, we rely on the department heads and elected officials to decide if we need it and if people are using it."
Columbiana Co.'s approach
In Columbiana County, commissioners take a more hands-on approach.
David Cranmer said he or one of his colleagues personally signs every purchase order.
In Trumbull, only out-of-the-ordinary purchases, such as a computer or fax machine, are reviewed by commissioners.
When a shipment arrives, the packing slip is brought to the billing clerk in the Columbiana County commissioners' office.
It's matched up with the vendor's invoice when that arrives in the mail.
"It is very tight," Cranmer said. "Our billing clerk is very astute. When something raises a red flag, she brings it to our attention."
Expensive orders
In a continuing series of articles beginning the first week of August, The Vindicator has reported that Trumbull County officials do not check purchase orders against packing slips and most packing slips are not even kept.
Tony Delmont, Trumbull's maintenance department director, who ordered over $450,000 worth of merchandise last year, said packing slips are just tossed into a box in his department, and some are thrown away.
There is also no one keeping track of what is being bought on a countywide basis.
Prosecutors investigating Delmont's department expressed shock after flipping through stacks of invoices to discover that more than $17,000 had been spent on air freshener and disinfectant spray in the last eight months.
"Give me 15 minutes, and I could tell you how much we spent," Columbiana's Cranmer said.
Centralized buying
In Mahoning County, purchases for nearly all county departments are funneled through a central purchasing department, where a staff of five fills out purchase orders, reviews invoices and handles contracts.
When, say, the recorder's office wants to buy something, it sends a requisition slip, said James Fortunato, Mahoning's purchasing director. The requisition should be accompanied by three price quotes if the item is not covered under a vendor contract and if it is expected to cost less than $15,000.
"It serves as sort of an audit function," said Gary Kubic, Mahoning County administrator.
The Ohio Revised Code requires competitive bidding or use of the state purchasing program for expenditures of more than $15,000.
Mahoning County's purchasing department also reviews invoices and packing slips before sending them along to the county auditor for payment.
Trumbull director's duties
Although Trumbull does have a purchasing director, Tony Carson has said his job does not actually entail any buying.
Neither does he routinely review purchases by others.
Carson says he's supposed to pick out certain items that different county departments are buying and try to get better prices. He also prepares specifications to seek competitive bids for some items on which the county has long been spending more than $15,000 a year.
After several Vindicator articles last year, the county went out to bid for prescription medication for jail inmates.
Carson also prepared bid packages for copy paper, office supplies, water coolers, floor mats and some janitorial supplies.
"It's just scratching the surface," said Trumbull Commissioner Michael O'Brien. He said there are many more purchases that should be put out to competitive bid.
He favors creating a purchasing department like Mahoning County's.
Angelo's not so sure.
"If everything is fine, we might stay exactly the way things are," he said. "If things have to be changed, this is one vehicle we might explore."