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Columbiana Co. to negotiate deal with four jailers
A settlement with county jailers is expected to cost six figures.
LISBON — Columbiana County commissioners will negotiate a settlement for failing to pay retirement benefits to four jail workers.
Commissioners signed an agreement Wednesday to resolve the decade-long dispute.
“It will cost them six figures. I can tell you that,” Atty. James E. Melle of Columbus, attorney for the jailers, said of commissioners.
He added that the workers “earned every penny of it.”
County Auditor Nancy Milliken said the county’s coffers are reflecting the tight economy. She said she will soon run projections on the county’s revenue to help determine how the jailers will be paid.
Melle said he will not receive a portion of the settlement, which is expected to be reached by June.
The county in 1997 decided to stop running the jail and instead allowed a private company, CiviGenics Inc. of Milford, Mass., to take it over.
Four jailers, Peter Neiheisel of Leetonia, Jerry C. Foreman of Rogers, Gene St. John of East Palestine and Melvin Jordan of Lisbon, were laid off by the county. CiviGenics then rehired them as jailers. Neiheisel has been a jailer since 1979, Foreman since 1985, St. John since 1993, and Jordan since 1992.
Neiheisel and St. John still work at the jail. Foreman does not, and Jordan’s status wasn’t clear.
State law says that people working for public agencies that become private can continue to accumulate state retirement benefits because they were doing the same work as private workers as they did as public employees.
But the legal debate about their eligibility went on for years. Melle got involved in 2005, and eventually filed a mandamus action against county officials in January with the 7th District Court of Appeals. A mandamus action is a case filed to force officials to do their duty, and the appeals court ruled in favor of the jailers.
Without the settlement, Melle said, the workers would have received only half of their pension that would have resulted in cuts in their Social Security benefits.
Peter Argeropulos, chief operating officer for CiviGenics Inc., said it was not involved in the settlement.
wilkinson@vindy.com