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State audit says Mahoning engineer could save $566,500 a year
YOUNGSTOWN
A state audit has identified $566,500 in savings it says the Mahoning County Engineer’s Office could achieve through changes in its Teamsters Local 377 union contract by eliminating an operations supervisor position and converting to an electronic payroll system to eliminate a clerk position.
The performance audit makes 19 recommendations, but only three have a specific dollar savings attached to them.
The largest savings proposed in the audit is $384,000 annually through renegotiation of the contract for 51 Teamsters employed by the engineer’s office.
That includes $238,000 to be saved in Public Employee Retirement System contributions, reducing longevity pay increases by $35,000, eliminating hazardous-duty pay for a for a $91,000 savings, and reducing commercial driver’s license bonuses to save $20,000.
Because the Teamsters and the county recently ratified a new three-year labor contract, County Engineer Patrick Ginnetti said it would be three years before any of those recommended changes in Teamster compensation could be made.
Ginnetti also said it wouldn’t be realistic to expect all of those changes to be made in one round of negotiations.
In the newly-ratified contact, the county is discontinuing its payment of the employee share of Public Employee Retirement System contributions, which is 10 percent of wages, and providing compensating pay raises to the Teamsters, in a transition Ginnetti said amounts to “a wash.”
The Teamsters’ annual full-time pay ranges from $32,261 a year for the lowest paid laborer to $53,976 for the highest paid master- vehicle mechanic.
The performance audit, released Tuesday by State Auditor Dave Yost, was requested in June 2013 by Ginnetti, who had taken office that January, and by county commissioners.
The state auditor charged the county about $100,000 for the audit, which Ginnetti said he sought to make his office more “productive, efficient and modern.”
The other audit recommendations with dollar values attached to them are eliminating one of four operations-supervisor positions for a $98,500 annual savings in combined pay and benefits; and eliminating one of two payroll-clerk positions for a savings of $84,000 in combined pay and benefits through conversion from a paper-based to an electronic payroll system.
Ginnetti said he hopes to eliminate those two non-union positions through resignations or retirements.
The engineer’s office has 75 employees and spent about $18 million in 2013.
The department is funded by motor-vehicle license and gasoline taxes and by road and bridge improvement funds from the Ohio Public Works Commission.
“I’m very technology driven, and I want to see more technology here,” Ginnetti said.
However, he added: “A lot of these suggestions are going to take years to implement. With that, there’s going to be a pretty sizeable investment” in new computer technology.
“We need to improve our equipment,” Ginnetti said, adding that his department has begun developing an equipment-replacement plan and bought three new dump trucks this year.
Among the 16 recommendations in the performance audit that don’t have specific dollar figures attached are: Using purchasing software, creating and following a strategic plan, creating and following a master road repaving plan, creating a vehicle and equipment replacement policy, and improving the department’s complaint management system.
Richard Sandberg, president of Teamsters Local 377, could not be reached to comment after a reporter emailed him the audit.