Firing of Trumbull JFS chief takes the public by surprise

The image of Tom Mahoney being escorted by sheriff’s deputies out of the Trumbull County Job and Family Services offices would be enough to set tongues wagging. But there are other aspects to Mahoney’s termination as director of JFS that makes this such an intriguing occurrence.

For starters, it wasn’t any one — or all three — of his bosses who told him that he had lost his job. That information was related to Mahoney by the deputies. Then there’s the fact that the former JFS director is being investigated by the sheriff’s department.

And, adding to the intrigue is the contention that there is nothing in his personnel file to indicate his bosses, the three Trumbull County commissioners, were getting ready to fire him.

Indeed, Commissioner Frank Fuda said he was not aware of any reprimands covering the eight years Mahoney was head of the agency.

So, what gives? No one in a position to know is talking.

What is known is this: There was an emergency, closed-door meeting of the county commissioners on Monday, and a resolution was passed to fire Mahoney. Present at the meeting was James Misocky, chief of the civil division of the county prosecutor’s office, which serves as the commissioners’ legal representative.

Prosecutor Dennis Watkins would only say that Mahoney’s firing is tied to an “administrative investigation” that is being conducted.

There is another bit of information that provides even more grist for the mill: A week ago Wednesday, police went to the JFS offices and arrested Kenneth A. Greep of Vienna on a charge of cocaine trafficking and cocaine possession.

The arrest followed a six-month investigation by the Trumbull Ashtabula Group Law Enforcement Task Force that led to a raid where Greep was living.

Second chance

He had been hired in September to a job that paid $9.25 an hour plus health-care benefits. Mahoney had explained the hiring was under the auspices of a program that gives nonviolent offenders a chance to re-establish their lives after being released from prison. Greep had served time in the federal penitentiary for selling marijuana.

His primary job was shredding files.

There has been no suggestion to date that Greep’s hiring and Mahoney’s firing are related.

But if the former director’s hiring practices are a subject of the on-going investigation, we wonder whether another controversial one will be reviewed. It occurred in 2005 and created a public outcry because of the obvious nepotism.

In November of that year, Commissioner Daniel Polivka’s mother, Donna, was hired as a full-time employee, earning $10.50 an hour. Polivka denied having any involvement in the hiring, but offered this observation: “Should she be treated any less just because she’s my mom? I know what kind of work my family would do. I could understand if she got a job where she did not have credentials, but this was a job where no one bid on it, so she got it.”

Donna Polivka had been hired in June 2005 as a summer intern in the senior division before being given the full-time post.

In light of the fact that the JFS director serves at the pleasure of the commissioners, and that Mahoney was aware that one of his bosses was related to the employee, the inherent unfairness of nepotism in the workplace became an issue.

Mrs. Polivka is no longer on the JFS payroll.