Council to revisit payroll issue

The original proposal was incomplete and ambiguous, a councilman says.

By DAVID SKOLNICK

CITY HALL REPORTER

YOUNGSTOWN — City council will consider legislation today with tougher language requiring employees who accept other jobs not compatible with their city employment to immediately resign.

Council will also vote on an ordinance today requiring those who leave active employment to receive their owed financial benefits in a lump sum and be immediately removed from the payroll.

Council had postponed a vote June 6 on legislation on this issue. Members said the original ordinance was too vague and convoluted regarding compatibility, it affected only those accepting full-time employment, and it didn’t require all employees who retire or resign from the city to take the lump-sum payment.

Councilman Rufus Hudson, D-2nd, said at a council finance committee meeting Tuesday that the original proposal was “incomplete, ambiguous and up for interpretation.”

City Law Director Iris Torres Guglucello presented council with new legislation Tuesday that eliminated full-time from in front of employment and cleaned up the language regarding jobs that are incompatible with city employment.

Six of the seven members of council attended Tuesday’s meeting and said they were satisfied with the language changes.

Targeting an old practice

The proposal was designed by the city administration to stop a repeat of a common practice at the police department. Since at least the 1960s, police officers routinely stayed on the books as active employees, exhausting their unused vacation and accumulated time, even though they resigned.

That permitted them to accumulate additional financial benefits, such as more vacation and sick time and longevity and hazardous duty pay.

The practice was brought to the attention of the public in April when Attorney General Marc Dann fired ex-Youngstown police Detective Sgt. Rick Alli as his chief of law enforcement operations.

Alli verbally resigned from his city job effective Jan. 8 but was still receiving his regular paycheck from the city for more than three months. Alli was getting paid with his unused vacation and accumulated time. Alli received $3,678.15 in financial benefits while he was no longer working for the city, according to finance department records.

The police department was the only city agency that permitted the practice. Mayor Jay Williams has since issued a directive to Police Chief Jimmy Hughes to stop the practice.

skolnick@vindy.com