State auditors say Niles administrators aren't listening to their advice
By Jordan Cohen
NILES
For the first time since their appointment by the state auditor more than 18 months ago, the city’s financial supervisors have complained publicly that their solutions for getting Niles out of fiscal emergency are falling on deaf ears.
“Unfortunately the city has chosen not to take a lot of our ideas [and] it is difficult to help when our ideas aren’t considered,” supervisor Nita Hendryx told the Financial Planning and Supervision Commission during its monthly meeting Wednesday.
The commission oversees the city’s finances while it remains in fiscal emergency.
While Hendryx and fellow supervisor Tim Lintner did not name anyone specifically, it was clear they were referring to Mayor Thomas Scarnecchia who sits on the commission. The mayor, who took office five months ago, has opposed several of their recommendations.
The original financial recovery plan put together by then-mayor Ralph Infante shortly before he left office included proposals for outsourcing income-tax collection and moving police dispatchers to the Trumbull County 911 Center. Scarnecchia eliminated both when he developed a modified recovery plan that was later approved by city council and the commission.
The supervisors were not happy with those changes and cited a problem they discovered in the income-tax office to buttress their points. The Vindicator reported last week that $154,000 in uncashed corporate and residential income tax payments remained in unopened boxes for more than a month in the treasurer’s office. Robert Swauger, treasurer at the time, later resigned.
“There’s no reason why those boxes were there, and no leadership for the last 18 months,” Jim Armeni, a liaison for state Auditor Dave Yost, told the commission. “Outside collection is a permanent solution, and we aren’t wavering from that.”
John Davis, a commission member and opponent of tax outsourcing, questioned the value of Infante’s proposals, but Armeni did not back down in his support of the former mayor’s plan.
“We’re not seeing major progress,” Armeni said. “If you follow the [financial supervisors], you’re going to be fine.”
“Am I happy with progress the administration is making? No,” said council president and commission member Robert Marino, who on several occasions has criticized Scarnecchia’s handling of the city’s financial plight.
“We have done nothing to curb our appetite for spending, and the way to get through this is with good, sound fiscal solutions,” Marino said.
Scarnecchia appeared to leave the door slightly open for possible changes.
“We may have to rethink many items in the plan,” he said after the meeting. Asked if that meant tax- collection outsourcing and maintaining the dispatchers, the mayor would only say he will review “the entire plan.”
As for reducing the city’s health care costs, one of its biggest expenses, Scarnecchia said that city negotiators will demand that unionized employees pay a percentage of premiums when collective bargaining begins next month. Currently, the city pays the entire amount.
Last week, the mayor ordered his department heads, nonunion workers and court employees to begin paying toward their health care coverage. The percentage has yet to be determined.
Giovanne Merlo, city auditor, said the city already has achieved sizable reductions in its health care expenses. Merlo told the commission the city has cut costs by $1.4 million and could save as much as $2 million depending on the volume of claims.
“The changes to health care are the only significant reason the city has made it at all,” Lintner said.