Thursday, March 20, 2008
The education bonus was awarded on the ‘honor system,’ the mayor says.
YOUNGSTOWN —¬†With a fake college degree in one of Carmen S. Conglose’s personnel files, Mayor Jay Williams is ordering city officials to check the authenticity of degrees for every employee who receives a bonus for having them.
“Until now, it’s been the honor system,” Williams said Wednesday. “... The process in place since 1999 was to accept the degrees from the employees at face value.”
That apparently hasn’t worked.
A phony 1986 bachelor of science degree in applied science from Youngstown State University is in Conglose’s personnel file at the city’s finance department.
Conglose, who retired Dec. 31 as the city’s deputy director of public works, insists he doesn’t know how the bogus degree got into his file.
But The Vindicator reported Wednesday that Conglose testified in a July 30, 2003, sworn court deposition that he earned a bachelor of science degree in applied science from YSU.
The state auditor’s office is helping the city investigate the matter.
Conglose earned $93,132 in salary last year from the city.
Because he received about $3,000 in education bonus pay since the policy was enacted in 1999, city officials say he could face criminal charges.
About 145 employees receive the education bonus, which is about $400 a year, Williams said.
The finance department is to produce a list of all city employees who received the education bonus during the past five years.
In addition, the department will include those employees’ positions, degrees, where the degrees were earned and “any other information that might be pertinent,” Williams said.
That information will be given to the mayor by March 31.
From there, the civil service and law departments will “verify the authenticity of the recipients’ educational credentials,” according to a letter Williams sent to the heads of those two departments and Finance Director David Bozanich.
The verification process could take some time, but it’s necessary in light of what happened, Williams said.
“We’ve had an incident that’s caused us to re-evaluate this process,” he said.
Also, city employees who earn college degrees in the future and those hired by the city who have degrees and are eligible for the education bonus will go through the same process, Williams said.
Williams received an anonymous letter Friday questioning the legitimacy of Conglose’s YSU degree.
Williams hired Conglose about two weeks ago as the part-time traffic coordinator, a job that pays up to $42,577 a year.
When Williams asked about the degree, Conglose acknowledged he didn’t have one. He also insisted he didn’t know how the forged document got into one of his personnel files.
Conglose resigned on the spot, saying it was because he was tired of dealing “with some of this craziness in city hall” and not because he’s guilty.
That “craziness,” Conglose said, included some city employees being jealous of him and others disliking him.
skolnick@vindy.com