Winds of change are blowing away stench in auditor’s office

Mahoning County Auditor Ralph Meacham has followed up his headline-grabbing decision to fire the office’s long-time chief deputy, Carol McFall, with another show stopper: The first-time officeholder has revoked the pay raises granted to select employees by his predecessor, Michael Sciortino, as he was leaving office — with the dark cloud of state criminal charges hanging over his head.

Meacham, a Republican who had never run for office but still defeated the Democratic incumbent in the November general election, acted as expeditiously as possible to stop Sciortino’s shameful betrayal of the taxpayers. Unfortunately, $1,576 in raises pocketed by three current employees and one former employee are unlikely to be recovered, according to county Prosecutor Paul Gains.

Gains also said the auditor’s office will be unable to take back the $28,110 in one-time bonuses given by Sciortino to 14 nonunion office employees.

In other words, Meacham, a certified public accountant who had a successful career in the private sector before he retired and then came out of retirement to run for office, will have $30,000 less in his operating budget.

While we have no doubt that Prosecutor Gains, who serves as the lawyer for all county government departments, is correct in his reading of the law, we renew our call to Meacham to seek the advice of Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine and Ohio Auditor David Yost.

We first encouraged the involvement of the Republican state officials in an editorial published shortly after the county auditor fired McFall because she had failed to give him all the details of pay raises and bonuses granted by Sciortino before he left office. McFall was on the list as receiving both.

We stated then that any revenue projections made by Sciortino should be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism. He had painted a rosy picture of county government’s financial condition, which now should be re- examined given the raises and bonuses, and the contract he entered into with the union representing employees in the office.

It is noteworthy that in announcing his decision to revoke the remainder of the raises, Meacham said his office would have been short $31,000 had he not acted.

“The bonuses were budgeted for and, therefore, did not throw us into a deficit,” he said.

But that prompts another question: When did Sciortino include the bonuses in his budget? We ask it because the county commissioners, who control the general fund, allocate money to various departments based on the budget requests they submit.

Budget hearings

The officeholders are given the chance to defend their spending proposals during budget hearings that are held in public by the commissioners.

When The Vindicator first revealed what the former auditor had done, Commissioner Carol Rimedio-Righetti said she and her two colleagues, Anthony Traficanti and David Ditzler, were not aware that certain employees were going to receive pay boosts. She said there was nothing in the budget submitted by Sciortino to show what he intended to do.

Meacham, however, says the bonuses were accounted for in the budget.

Given the lack of clarity as to how the former auditor was able get away with what he did — despite the keepers of the public purse reviewing his budget — we believe an independent review of his actions is warranted.