State auditor removes Mecca Township from its unauditable list

Staff report

MECCA

Because of the restoration of its financial records, the state auditor removed Mecca Township from its “unauditable” list after more than 22 months.

“Complete financial records shine a light on local government,” Auditor Keith Faber said Tuesday. “It is good that taxpayers are no longer being left in the dark on how their tax dollars are being spent.”

The township’s incomplete financial records and bank reconciliations for the 2016 calendar year prompted the auditor’s office to declare Mecca Township unauditable June 12, 2017. The township has remained on the unauditable list from that date until Tuesday.

The auditor’s office only removes an entity from the unauditable list when the audit in question has been completed and released to the public. Perry & Associates completed the audit.

On Feb. 1, 2018, Judge Andrew Logan of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court ruled to remove Deborah Drawl as Mecca Township fiscal officer, citing her unwillingness to accept training from other area fiscal officers.

The judge said Drawl “failed to utilize the training offered through Howland and Canfield Township fiscal officers,” and “even today has failed to remedy the unauditable status of the records.”

The Ohio Attorney General’s Office filed a removal action with the court on behalf of the auditor’s office after problems with the financial records became apparent in February 2017.

A Perry & Associates representative visited Drawl in February 2017 to begin the 2016 state audit and discovered the financial records were in disarray. Four months later, the auditor’s office declared the township’s financial records unauditable.

Last week, the Ohio Supreme Court refused to accept Drawl’s appeal.