Conglose bonus issue with city isn’t over yet
The $3,341 payment doesn’t end the matter, the city prosecutor says.
YOUNGSTOWN — After the Ohio auditor’s office informed Carmen S. Conglose Jr. that it planned a finding of recovery of $3,341.46 against him for improperly receiving education bonuses, he promptly paid that amount to the city.
But the payment for nine years’ worth of improper bonuses doesn’t mean the ex-deputy director of public works can put this situation behind him.
When asked Thursday if this means the matter is over with the payment, city Prosecutor Jay Macejko said: “No, it does not. I won’t comment further except to say I’m in negotiations with his attorneys.”
City officials had previously said Conglose could face criminal charges for accepting the money.
The decision on filing any criminal charges against Conglose will come from Macejko, Mayor Jay Williams said Thursday.
Matthew Blair, who is Conglose’s co-legal counsel with David Engler, said Thursday he couldn’t comment as to whether the repayment was the end of this issue.
In an e-mail sent to Blair, accidentally faxed by his office March 21 to The Vindicator, Engler wrote his co-counsel should call the mayor sometime “soon to try to keep the client from being prosecuted.”
The auditor’s office is expected to include the finding for recovery against Conglose in the city’s annual audit for 2006, even though the issue first came to the attention of city officials two months ago. The report will be issued shortly.
In a May 13 letter to Conglose, obtained Thursday by The Vindicator, the auditor’s office wrote that it was proposing a finding of recovery of $3,341.46 against him.
Between 1999 and 2007, Conglose received that amount in education bonuses.
A fake 1986 bachelor of science degree in applied science from Youngstown State University was found in Conglose’s personnel file at the city finance department. Conglose told Mayor Jay Williams on March 14 that it was a fake degree and he had no idea about it or how it got into the file.
But on July 30, 2003, Conglose had testified in a sworn court deposition that he earned that degree.
Williams had rehired Conglose as the part-time traffic coordinator with an annual salary up to $42,577 about a week before learning about the fake degree. Conglose retired Dec. 31 from his public works job that paid $93,132 annually in base salary.
Conglose resigned as traffic coordinator the day Williams asked him about the degree. Conglose has contended he quit because he was tired of dealing “with some of this craziness in city hall” including some city employees being jealous of him and others disliking him.
Conglose insisted he was entitled to the money because his 1990 surveyor’s license was viewed by the state as equivalent to a four-year college degree — something disputed by the head of the state agency that awards the licenses.
“He still believes the certificate is the same as a four-year degree, but he sent the money back,” Blair said Thursday.
The auditor’s proposed finding for recovery described the payment to Conglose as “public money illegally expended.”
Because of Conglose’s fake degree, Williams initiated a policy last month to check the legitimacy of college degrees earned by those who receive the annual education bonuses. Before this happened, the city used the “honor system” regarding the education bonuses, he’s said.
With the city’s budget problems as its top priority, the investigation into education bonuses is being postponed, Williams said. No bonuses are being given until a new policy is implemented, he said.
skolnick@vindy.com