Tuesday, March 17, 2015
YOUNGSTOWN
Citing a lack of funds, Mahoning County Auditor Ralph T. Meacham has canceled all future payments of $21,703 in raises his predecessor, Michael V. Sciortino, bestowed on selected office employees in the waning days of his administration.
County Prosecutor Paul J. Gains said, however, he doesn’t believe any of the $1,576 in raise money already disbursed can be recovered legally from the three current employees and one former employee who received them.
Since Gains also said he doubts the county has the legal authority to recover the $28,110 in one-time bonuses Sciortino bestowed on 14 nonunion office employees Feb. 20, Sciortino’s last-minute raises and bonuses still likely will cost taxpayers about $30,000.
“We’re looking to see if it is possible to recoup that money, but I seriously doubt if we will be able to,” Gains said Monday of the bonuses.
“We would need some kind of court order to dock their checks” if recipients don’t agree to be docked for recovery of the bonuses, Gains said.
The bonuses were paid on the last business day before a three-judge panel suspended Sciortino on Feb. 23 based on allegations against him in the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal- conspiracy case.
Raises that were to have gone to nine other employees were never processed by the payroll department.
One of the raise and bonus recipients was Carol McFall, who was fired by Meacham from her $92,500-a-year job as chief deputy auditor March 4.
Meacham, who began work as interim auditor March 3, said he fired McFall because she did not meet his standards of transparency in responding to a Vindicator public-records request concerning the raises when she redacted the bonus information from a personnel action request supplied to the newspaper.
Meacham, who had halted raise payments during his interim-auditor period pending further inquiry, began his full four-year term as auditor March 9 after unseating Sciortino in the November election.
Had the raises — and associated benefits — been left intact, the auditor’s budget would have suffered a shortfall of about $31,000, Meacham said.
“These were not in our budget,” he said of the raises, which he rescinded Monday.
“The bonuses were budgeted for, and, therefore, did not throw us into a deficit,” Meacham said.
The auditor’s 2015 general-fund budget is $1,009,346, plus $1,240,374 for data processing.
Three of the 13 people Sciortino selected for raises are members of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 2533, which represents 22 auditor’s office employees.
Janet Szenborn, union president, said “the union respects the auditor’s decision” to rescind the raises.
She previously said granting such raises to union members violated the union contract, which she said bars any raises beyond what the contract prescribes.
Meacham said the chief deputy auditor’s job-availability notice is being posted this week.
Meacham, a certified public accountant, has said he would prefer that his chief deputy be a CPA, as is McFall, who had been with the county for nearly 10 years.
The notice prepared for posting sets a March 25 deadline for application submission and says the salary will be “$70,000 to $80,000+.”
The qualifications are listed as a “bachelor’s degree in accounting, finance, economics, business or public administration” and “10 years public accounting experience, preferably in governmental accounting and finance, along with supervisory experience.”