43
Furloughed safety forces among eight Niles recalls
By Jordan Cohen
NILES
Mayor Thomas Scarnecchia announced Monday he will recall eight furloughed city employees June 26, including five members of the safety forces.
Three police officers and three firefighters had been laid off since last February, but one was recalled last month.
In addition, the mayor is recalling a police secretary, a safety-service building custodian and a part-time building inspector.
“Our income-tax collections are up, and we’ll start collecting from the income-tax increase, so I was able to call them back,” Scarnecchia said.
Last March, voters approved a half-percent income-tax increase that is projected to generate $575,000 this year and $2 million by 2017 to be allocated solely to the safety forces.
“Without that vote, we’d be nowhere,” said city Auditor Giovanne Merlo.
According to the auditor, two other factors have enabled the city to recall employees sooner than expected.
“One is that the state changed tax collections from quarterly to monthly, which is why we have higher revenue this year, and the other is our health care savings,” Merlo said.
The city’s health care insurance broker reported earlier this month that health care changes have resulted in savings of more than $2 million.
With Niles in fiscal emergency since October 2014, the safety forces and six other employees were laid off as part of the city’s efforts to reduce its general-fund deficit. One officer was brought back last month after acting Police Chief Jay Holland determined that revenue in the department’s OVI (operating a vehicle while impaired) fund could be used to pay for the officer’s wages and benefits. The fund, established from fines paid by alcohol or drug impaired drivers, currently amounts to $150,000.
In his news release announcing the recalls, Scarnecchia also addressed the issue of maintaining the city’s income-tax department or eliminating it by outsourcing tax collections to the Regional Income Tax Agency. Ohio Auditor Dave Yost and the city’s two state-appointed fiscal supervisors have strongly encouraged going with RITA.
Scarnecchia has opposed outsourcing and did not include it in his revised financial recovery plan.
“I will maintain my position,” he wrote in his news release. “I do not want to be forced into a situation to outsource ... when other options may be available.”
The mayor said he is waiting to review the latest five-year financial forecast from the city’s fiscal supervisors, and plans on announcing his decision at the June 29 meeting of the Financial Planning and Supervision Commission. The panel oversees all city expenditures and implementation of the recovery plan.
“I am carefully analyzing both systems and what will be best for the city of Niles,” he wrote.
A 2014 performance audit of the city estimated the savings from outsourcing at $138,000; however, in a previous recovery plan by Scarnecchia’s predecessor, Ralph Infante, savings were projected at only $43,000.
The fiscal supervisors had approved the Infante plan and its financial conclusions.