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State audit offers Niles cost-saving suggestions
By Jordan Cohen
NILES
State Auditor Dave Yost said Niles could save $4.4 million annually if all the recommendations in a performance audit released Thursday were adopted, but the city’s mayor said he has no interest in implementing at least one of them.
State auditors recommended the city “explore other, more cost-effective, regional opportunities for procuring its water supply” from a supplier other than the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District because “the rate charged to Niles may not be regionally competitive.” In a news release, Yost said the city could save nearly $1.6 million a year by finding another water supplier or renegotiating with MVSD.
Mayor Ralph Infante would have none of it.
“They have to remember that Niles and Youngstown are the owners of MVSD and we’re doing a lot of improvements,” Infante said. “We’re paying higher, but it’s a good quality of water.
“When the time comes for new water rates, we’ll look at it,” the mayor said. None of the auditor’s recommendations is mandatory.
The performance audit, requested by the city in 2013, uncovered significant revenue losses in the city’s water, sewer and electric departments. In the latter, auditors said Niles lost $982,000 above what would be considered an acceptable revenue loss rate due to an “unaccounted electricity [loss] rate of 14 percent.”
Auditors were critical of paper-based record keeping for payroll and budgeting, however in August, the city contracted with a new software provider to address these issues — a fact Yost acknowledged in his news release.
Other financial recommendations in the audit:
Renegotiate collective-bargaining agreements and health insurance, which Yost said would save the city more than $1.5 million yearly. Currently, the city pays 100 percent of employee health premiums.
Consolidate the fire department into one station. The city has two.
Contract out the health department and dispatching services—an estimated annual savings of nearly $190,000.
Infante does not favor fire-station consolidation. “You would have to centralize and build a new building, and we don’t need to do that,” the mayor said. “We need our station on Route 46 for the [Route 422] strip.”
Infante said contract negotiations are underway with the fire department and the ranking officers in the police department. The mayor revealed that the city’s position is that the both groups will have to agree to a co-payment, which the auditors have recommended. Despite his disagreement with several of the recommendations, Infante called the audit “a great tool, and we can go forward with it in all departments.”
Auditor Charles Nader said he does not take the findings personally, noting that many of the recommendations such as collective-bargaining agreements and outsourcing are beyond his control.
“We knew about the deficits before the audit started,” Nader said. “It is what it is, and that’s the state we are in right now.”
Yost’s office still is working on the city’s financial audit—a review that earlier this year uncovered a purported embezzlement of more than $142,000 from the treasurer’s office. The discovery led to a grand jury indictment of Phyllis Wilson, a former clerk, for theft in office.