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YOUNGSTOWN – The mayor fired a longtime Youngstown finance department employee, who was on paid administrative leave after $5,632.50 in city money she was supposed to deposit in a bank went missing.

Annette Klimko, general accounting manager who made $77,108 annually, was fired for neglect of duty, misfeasance and insubordination, according to a termination letter from Mayor Jamael Tito Brown.

The city’s board of control on Thursday approved a $51,812.72 severance payment to Klimko that included $26,096.51 for 789 hours of unpaid accumulated time for work she did about a decade ago, $17,860.19 for unused sick time, paid at 35 percent of her hourly rate, as well as $11,634.84 for unused vacation time, a $400 bonus for not using sick time during the first quarter of the year — during which she was on paid suspension the entire time –and $54.68 in newer unpaid accumulated time.

City council passed legislation in December 1984 that allows employees to be paid for money owed to them for unused time as well as 35 percent of their unused sick time. Klimko hasn’t been charged with a crime, but in the past the city has made severance payments to those who were.

The city deducted $4,233.50 from Klimko’s total for the amount of cash that ended up missing from the deposit she was to make. There were $1,399 in checks that she failed to deposit that the city has since received from those who initially wrote them.

After it was discovered that the money was missing, Klimko, who has undisclosed medical issues, wrote a check for the full unaccounted amount, Kyle Miasek, the city’s finance director has said in December. That check was not cashed.

Miasek called Klimko, who worked for the city for more than 30 years, a “stellar employee” and that “she was not stealing from us. She is having medical issues.”

She was put on paid administrative leave Nov. 22.

The police department’s internal affairs division is investigating the missing money. But city Law Director Jeff Limbian said Brown “didn’t want to wait any longer and decided to terminate her based on the reasons in the letter.”

The April 10 termination letter states that Klimko was to deposit $5,632.50 collected on Oct. 28 for various bills and fees at a lock box at a Huntington Bank branch. Miasek learned on Nov. 1 that the deposit wasn’t made and when Klimko was asked about the location of the funds she “did not offer any plausible explanation of its whereabouts and as of this date, the deposit has not been located,” Brown wrote.

It adds: “As a financial representative for the city, you were entrusted with the duty to ensure the safe deposit of the funds. Your actions in this case amounts to insubordination, misfeasance and neglect of duty. Due to the seriousness of the offenses, your employment is terminated.”

dskolnick@vindy.com