YOUNGSTOWN — The city’s board of control approved a $39,388 severance payment to fired police Lt. Brian Flynn, who lost his job after being charged with 14 counts of dereliction of duty.

Most of the money approved Thursday for Flynn is for unused sick time.

City officials say despite the allegations, the city has no choice but to pay Flynn for time he earned. Severance is a contractual agreement made up of unused vacation time, sick time and any other time accrued.

Flynn started working for the department Aug. 31, 1998. He was promoted Feb. 8, 2006, to detective sergeant and then to lieutenant on Sept. 16, 2001.

He was fired Dec. 2, 2022, after being on paid administrative leave for more than 20 months, starting March 25, 2021. His annual salary when he was terminated was $77,105.

Flynn is facing 14 misdemeanor counts of dereliction of duty, and will return to municipal court for a March 6 motion hearing.

Flynn, 48, was charged Oct. 25 with 14 counts for allegedly failing to follow up on potential child abuse and child pornography cases when he was a lieutenant for the city police department and head of the Family Investigative Services Unit.

Flynn pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.

The charges accuse Flynn of negligently failing to perform his job in criminal cases or proceedings from Nov. 11, 2020, to Feb. 11, 2021.

A Summit County Sheriff’s Office investigator determined that Flynn repeatedly ignored investigations on potential child abuse and child pornography cases.

The Ohio Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force had referred cases to Flynn, who was “either summarily deleting them or just ignoring them, and he was directing officers in his unit to do the same,” city Law Director Jeff Limbian said shortly before Flynn was fired.

Youngstown police’s internal affairs department first found the problem, but officials decided it would be more proper for an outside agency to investigate. It took several months to find an outside unit and then more time for that probe to be concluded, Limbian has said.

dskolnick@vindy.com