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The Ohio State Auditor released its annual audit of Trumbull County on Tuesday and revealed the county engineer demolished a building it shouldn't have through an agreement with the county and the Trumbull County Council of Governments.
The county audit was for calendar year 2021.
The county engineer's office was part of a memorandum of understanding with the Trumbull County commissioners and the Trumbull County Council of Governments, which directed the engineer's office to demolish the old Niles Times building on West State Street, located across from the Niles Administration Building.
The demolition took place in August 2021. The building was around 100 years old at the time but had been vacant since the 1990s when the newspaper closed. The location is now a parking lot on land owned by the city of Niles.
The management letter written by the auditor states that an agreement through a regional council of governments cannot circumvent any statutory restrictions on the members involved. Thus, it states the transaction was an unauthorized use of the county engineer's resources.
Vienna Trustee Phil Pegg said before the COG proceeded with the demolition, a legal opinion was sought, and deemed appropriate to proceed
"We did ask ahead of time if it was legal and were told it was. We were following legal opinion," Pegg said during a COG meeting on Wednesday.
The letter addressed to the county commissioners states the demolition project "did not fall under an allowable power of County commissioners or an allowable duty of a county engineer under Ohio law."
As outlined in the Ohio Revised Code and a 2017 Attorney General opinion, the audit states that "a county engineer's duties are generally the maintenance of roads, bridges, ditches and highways."
It goes on to say that while the engineer has other duties, those duties are only ones that help the engineer complete the enumerated duties.
The letter gave an example that if contracted by a township, the board of commissioners could require the county engineer to maintain township driveways and parking areas, but the commissioners could not require the engineer to maintain township buildings, because that falls outside of the enumerated duties.
Council of Governments members Wednesday discussed the state audit report.
OPINION SOUGHT
The COG voted on Wednesday to seek a legal opinion from their attorneys Baker, Dublikar, Beck, Wiley and Matthews of North Canton. Howland Trustee James Lapolla said the COG is seeking better clarification regarding the demolition.
"We do not want to have to get rid of our demolition projects because that has been the heart of the COG. We need to get better directions on what can and what can't be done. We may need to contract with a private demolition company. This all has to be discussed,'' Lapolla said.
Lapolla said the county was helping townships and cities in reducing blight throughout the county.
Niles Councilman Jimmy Julian said the COG helped the city with getting the Waddell Park swimming pool building demolished last summer. Previously, COG helped Niles get the former Garfield School demolished.
He said neither of these were brought up in the audit report.
Weathersfield Trustee Steve Gerberry said other demolitions were not noted because they were in different years and the audit was for 2021.
County Commissioner Niki Frenchko said demolitions are allowed to be done for the development of a parking lot. Julian said the former Niles Times building was turned into a parking lot used by city employees and the public.
OTHER ISSUES
Trumbull County Auditor Martha Yoder said she is making her way through the audit and has plans to meet with departments to help them address problems found. She said some of the issues outlines are clear cut about whose duty they are, while others are more complicated and will require collaboration.
For example, the audit outlines some recommendations about information technology (IT) aquisition, implementation and management. Yoder said IT falls under the auditor's office, so she will deal with it, but noted that some policies likely will require collaboration between the human resources department and the board of commissioners.
"This is fairly comprehensive in the sense that it goes over a broad range of topics," Yoder said of the audit. "It's not just about financial matters. It is also about policies and policy implementation."
The audit and management letter gives a couple of examples of times when personnel policy was not being correctly followed.
The management letter says that in 2021, a part-time, nonunion employee of the sanitary engineer's department received vacation leave, health care benefits and a 4 percent Public Employees Retirement Program pickup. However, the county's policy manual states that part-time employees "shall not be entitled to any benefits, unless otherwise specified in this manual."
The letter states that this employee was hired by the commissioners to work in the sanitary engineer's office as an attorney at 20 hours per week. Matthew Blair works part time as an attorney in the sanitary engineer's office. The commissioners voted in 2019 to give him these benefits.
According to the management letter, "the county granting this employee additional benefits would appear to be contrary to their own standard policy."
The letter recommends that to continue this employee's benefits, the current commissioners should either align their policy with the benefits afforded to this part-time employee, or they should take action to approve all current benefits for part-time employees.
The management letter warns that not taking corrective action could result in the state auditor issuing findings of recovery in the future.
ONE FINDING
The audit did outline one finding of recovery. Mauro DiVieste, who in 2021 worked as a nonunion warrants and data processor in the 911 department, took vacation time that he was entitled to, but it was not taken out of his overall accrued leave balances. There also was an instance when he was underpaid $43.74.
Therefore, the audit states that DiVieste must pay the 911 department $643.
The last time a funding of recovery was issued in a Trumbull County audit was in 2016. At the time, County Engineer Randy Smith had to pay the county $2,000 that he was overpaid.
The 2016 audit states that there was a change in the pay schedule, so it was hard for the error to be detected and that while the finding had to go against Smith because he was overpaid, he had no input in the payment schedule change. The payment was made back to the county in full.