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MacMillan resigns from Wellness Center
By Jordan Cohen
NILES
Scott MacMillan, who has served as scheduling director of the city’s financially troubled Wellness Center, has resigned effective Jan. 5.
MacMillan, 58, had been full-time facility director when the center opened in 2009, but his position was reduced to part-time as an austerity measure in September 2015 – nearly a year after the city was declared in fiscal emergency. His pay of $50,000 was cut in half and he lost his benefits.
“I’m a General Motors retiree, so that helped,” he said.
The center has had no director since, but MacMillan said he kept doing his former job despite being part-time.
“It’s been a tough place to work,” he told The Vindicator on Thursday. “I was supposed to be doing nothing but scheduling but I’ve had to pick up everything else.
“And our bookkeeper recently resigned so there’s no one to handle the money,” he said.
MacMillan revealed that he sent his resignation letter to Mayor Thomas Scarnecchia last September, but stayed on at the mayor’s request. He said despite his departure, he is not leaving the center empty-handed.
“I’ve taken care of everything through March 5, and all events for the next 12 months have been booked,” he said. “In fact, all our large events are sold out through 2017.”
The Wellness Center has been hemorrhaging money since its opening with losses estimated at $1 million in the last eight years. Those losses led Scarnecchia to include a provision in his recovery plan to lease the center for $240,000 a year – an amount that covers the city’s annual payment for the loan that financed construction. If successful, the lease would save the city $160,000 annually.
MacMillan said he had previously offered a solution that did not involve a lease.
“I proposed partnering with Trumbull County SCOPE [Center] and turning the building into the Trumbull County Senior Niles Community Center,” MacMillan said. “SCOPE could have used their employees in the daytime and that would have cut our contracted labor costs in half.”
MacMillan’s proposal included maintaining soccer tournaments – among the biggest revenue producers for the center – in the evenings. He said there was no response to his plan after he submitted it to the mayor.
MacMillan plans to remain active in soccer. He is Eastern District commissioner of Youth Soccer in Northern Ohio and president of an association of district soccer coaches.
“Other than that, I plan to retire,” he said. “I have five grandkids and I want to see more of them.”