Thursday, August 27, 2015
lowellville
By SARAH LEHR
LOWELLVILLE
Village council wants former Police Chief Ryan Bonacci to return $3,514.10 to the village.
Council approved a motion at a special meeting Wednesday night asking that Solicitor James E. Lanzo submit a formal letter to Bonacci requesting the return of $3,514.10 paid to Bonacci June 23. Bonacci resigned in June, saying Mayor James Iudiciani had intimidated him and interfered with the management of the police department.
At a claims committee meeting Wednesday night, Councilman Ronald Rotunno said, “The ex-chief owes us money. There’s no question about that. It’s up to us to determine how much.”
The discrepancy arises from legislation regarding village salaries approved by council during May 2014. The ordinance defines compensatory or “comp” time as paid time off. The ordinance stipulates that all village employees, except for the chief of police, may receive 11/2 hours of comp time in lieu of one hour of overtime. Overtime pay is 11/2 times the normal rate.
The chief, according to the ordinance, is eligible to receive comp time only during the annual Mount Carmel celebration and for up to eight hours per day for court appearances.
The chief’s salary is $42,500. Based on a 2,080-hour work year, the chief’s regular wage is $20.43 an hour and his pay for time-and-a-half would be $30.65 an hour. However, a pay stub from June 29 indicates the village paid Bonacci $4,929.66 at a rate of $27.54 an hour for 179 hours between June 7 and June 27. Council has since contended that Bonacci was not entitled to any of this pay. Council arrived at requesting $3,514.10 from Bonacci rather than $4,929.66 based on the net amount of money Bonacci received after taxes and withholdings.
Bonacci could not be reached for comment.
Mayor Iudiciani called into question hours paid to Bonacci going back to 2013 and originally alleged that Bonacci owed $6,394.19 to the village. However, council decided not to examine hours going back that far after Solicitor James Lanzo informed them that they would have little legal recourse to reclaim the money if they did in fact conclude that some of the pay was wrongly granted. Council itself approves hours paid to the chief when it passes salary ordinances every month.
“If council approved it, you’re probably S.O.L., to use the legal term,” Lanzo quipped.
Mayor Iudiciani said he would do a better job in the future of monitoring pay to the police department.
“I can promise you with this new system it’s not going to happen again,” he said.
At a meeting on Aug. 19, council voted 4-3 to approve a $12,000 salary for the mayor beginning in 2016, which is a $7,200 annual increase from the current salary. Three councilman voted in favor and three voted against it. Iudiciani broke the tie by voting in favor. However, an Ohio law that went into effect in 1981 indicates that the salary increase may not be legal because legislators can fix compensation for elected officials only earlier than five days before the filing deadline for an office. The filing deadline for mayor was Aug. 5.
Incumbent Iudiciani was the only person to throw his name into the ring.
The Mahoning County Board of Elections will look into the legality of the pay increase, Iudiciani said.