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YMHA director to leave for post in Omaha
YOUNGSTOWN
Clifford Scott will be leaving his post as Youngstown Metropolitan Housing Authority executive director, effective July 18, to become chief executive officer the following day at the Omaha Housing Authority in Nebraska.
Last month, the Omaha authority announced that Scott was one of three finalists among 37 applicants for the top job there.
Scott, who has been earning $93,840 annually in his job here, will be paid $115,000 a year in his new job, in which he said he will focus on turning around the financially ailing OHA.
“It’s a tall order. It’s a huge challenge, a huge endeavor. This is a troubled agency,” he said of OHA. “I’m happy to get an opportunity to fix this housing authority.”
YMHA has a $32 million annual budget and 86 employees, and OHA has a $56 million budget and 220 employees, Scott said Wednesday.
Scott was placed on paid administrative leave by the YMHA board of commissioners March 3 and applied for the Omaha job the same month, before the Youngstown board reinstated him to active status April 27.
The YMHA board imposed the leave because Scott granted employee-pay increases that the board said were unauthorized.
In August 2009, Scott sent the commissioners a memo informing them of his intention to grant a 1.5 percent cost-of-living pay increase to all authority employees except himself effective Oct. 2 of that year.
Scott said his decision to act without board approval was based on practices of the last two directors and an interim director.
Nathaniel Pinkard, YMHA board chairman, would not explain the board’s reasons for reinstating Scott, except to say that it had concluded its investigation into the pay raises.
Scott has been overseeing major construction and renovation projects at six of YMHA’s 10 housing developments, including a $10 million renovation of the Brier Hill Annex and the $22 million demolition and replacement of the remaining Westlake Terrace buildings.
Before coming to Youngstown in May 2008, Scott had been Section 8 director at the Kansas City, Mo., housing authority and for New York State.
Section 8 is a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development-funded program that subsidizes rents for poor people leasing housing from private landlords.