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MVSD: Water not impacted by training deficiency
NILES
Suspected discrepancies in water operator license- training records likely won’t affect the safety of the water supplied by the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District, according to the president of the MVSD board of directors.
“I don’t believe it has anything to do with the safety of the drinking water,” said Matthew Blair, water district board president.
MVSD supplies treated water from Meander Reservoir to Youngstown, Niles and surrounding communities.
“The drinking water is carefully monitored, not only by the MVSD staff, but also by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency,” Blair said in an interview.
A little over a month ago, MVSD launched its own investigation of a chlorine safety class that had been scheduled for Sept. 18 and 20, 2014, at the district’s Meander treatment plant, Blair said.
That class was mentioned in the state’s bill of particulars filed May 18 in a criminal case alleging that Anthony P. Vigorito, former MVSD plant operations manager, committed fraud in connection with water treatment system operator training.
Vigorito’s lawyer, Martin F. White of Warren, declined to comment on the bill of particulars.
The bill alleges Vigorito acknowledged in a Sept. 29, 2014, memo he issued at MVSD that he engaged in a “fraudulent scheme of not requiring training students to attend classroom training” in chlorine safety on those 2014 dates.
Those who didn’t attend that class could take a quiz attached to the memo and sign the attendance sheet, the memo said.
“The defendant specifically stated in the memo: ‘Please do not write any dates on the test,’ indicating he was aware tests taken without classroom training would be fraudulent,” the bill says.
“The investigation is ongoing, and all employees who have not met the required contact hours will be required to immediately retake courses to properly comply with required contact hours,” said a news release from Blair.
“This will occur regardless of whether employees received certificates stating that classes had taken place on a certain date and that they were in attendance for the required number of hours,” the release said.
William Evans, an Akron lawyer and polygraph examiner, reported preliminary findings of his investigation of the matter to the MVSD board in executive session this week, Blair said.
At the water district board’s request, Evans also reported his findings to OEPA, Blair said in the news release.
Evans hasn’t polygraphed any water district employees in this matter, and likely won’t, Blair said.
“He’s conducting the investigation, and the employees are cooperating with him,” Blair said.
So far, the probe is focused on the September 2014 chlorine training, but it may expand to other water training course offerings, Blair said.
“We wanted to go ahead and just alert the public that there is an issue – a discrepancy between hours reported and hours actually attended” in water system operator training, Blair said of his rationale for issuing the news release.
No MVSD employees have been disciplined concerning such discrepancies, Blair said.
Blair said his news release pertains only to MVSD employees.
An Ohio Attorney General’s Office spokeswoman referred questions about locations of water system operator training classes linked to Vigorito over the past five years, the identities of his trainees and Ohio EPA training and certification rules to the Ohio EPA.
“Certified operators are required to submit true and accurate information to the agency. Completion of continuing education courses is required for the renewal of operator certificates. In the event a person submitted a renewal application documenting that they had completed a course and, in fact, had not completed the course, the agency would begin an investigation and take appropriate measures,” said Mike Settles, OEPA media relations coordinator.
On March 23, a Mahoning County grand jury indicted Vigorito, 41, of Isaac Avenue, Niles, on two counts each of forgery, tampering with records and falsification of training documents.
Vigorito has pleaded innocent to those charges.
The week before Vigorito’s April 4 arraignment on those charges in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, the MVSD board placed him on paid administrative leave, converting that to unpaid administrative leave in late April.
The bill of particulars from the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, which provides details concerning the charges, alleges Vigorito got $100 per person for two-day water system operator license-renewal classes he failed to teach at the Youngstown Water Department.
He also caused a city water department employee to issue tests with answer sheets for city water department workers to fill out to get fraudulent certificates of completion, the bill said.
Youngstown Water Department security logs show no record of attendance by department employees at the classes Vigorito was scheduled to teach there May 4 and 5, 2013, and Sept. 18 and 20, 2014.
Twenty-six city water department employees were charged in September 2016 with a misdemeanor count each of falsifying contact hours. Two of them have since died.
Twenty-four of the workers and one former city water department worker were found guilty Feb. 27 in Franklin County Municipal Court of falsifying contact hours by claiming they had completed coursework to receive OEPA certifications.
Under a plea agreement with the Ohio AG’s office, the defendants agreed to pay $2,000 in restitution to the city, plus a $1,000 fine and a $250 court administrative fee.
Some agreed to perform 50 hours of community service, but others opted to pay an additional $1,000 fine instead.
The OEPA revoked their certificates, and the city imposed pay cuts and five-day suspension notices on them and required them to complete a business ethics course.
Blair said the investigation of suspected training discrepancies at MVSD was an offshoot of Evans’ investigation into an allegation by Duane Turnage, a water district field maintenance foreman, who claimed to have received a racist Ku Klux Klan flier in his office, but resigned before a pre-disciplinary hearing that had been scheduled to discuss his allegation.
“We have not found anything that would substantiate this was a legitimate claim,” Blair told The Vindicator in late April.
The board had hired Evans at $275 per hour to investigate Turnage’s claim.