State auditor should review vendor's history with city

For 15 years, one company, which Youngstown Mayor George M. McKelvey inexplicably refuses to identify, has been supplying city government with cleaning supplies. It certainly wasn't a pocket-change relationship. In the past four years, the contract was worth $90,000 annually.
That's why we believe Ohio Auditor Betty Montgomery should not confine her office's investigation of the company's dealings with the city to five years. We are well aware that the state was asked to conduct the review after Finance Director David Bozanich found overbilling of about $25,000 to $27,000 during a routine review of the contracts with the company.
However, given the long-standing relationship between the cleaning supplies vendor and city government, it is prudent and necessary to determine how it began.
Montgomery contends that conducting such an examination is "like doing test bores."
"We will go back five years, and if there are any indications of problems, we'll go back further and broaden the investigation," the auditor said last week during a visit to Youngstown.
But given that routine state audits did not turn up any problems, taxpayers are left to wonder if there are any other aspects of the contract that have not been uncovered. While the company has repaid the city for the amount it overbilled, there is no way of telling whether this was an aberration, or whether it reflects a pattern of behavior.
That issue will only be resolved satisfactorily by the state auditor conducting a year-by-year review of the transactions.
Different administrations
There is another compelling reason to go back 15 years: A different administration was in office. Patrick J. Ungaro was the mayor and had his own law and finance directors. The mayor and law and finance directors make up the board of control, which has the power to negotiate and enter into contracts.
McKelvey took office in January 1998 and is in his second four-year term.
The mayor's refusal to release the name of the vendor until he receives clarification from the state auditor is puzzling in light of the fact that last week state audit officials told the city that the decision on publicizing the identity rests with the law director.
Montgomery told Vindicator writers that state law prohibits her office from disclosing the name of the company because it is the subject of a special audit. However, that law does not apply to city government, which requested the audit, she added.
The mayor must know that even though it was the finance director who brought the issue of the overbilling to his attention, and it was his administration that sought the special audit, his refusal to make public the name of a company that has done business with city government for more than a decade simply creates another layer of suspicion.
What is needed is total openness -- not only with respect to this particular vendor, but with all the companies doing business with the city. We do applaud the state auditor for announcing that the special audit will delve into the city's procedures for entering into contracts with vendors.