YOUNGSTOWN — The city filed a motion to dismiss the case filed by Sarah Brown-Clark, the former city clerk of courts, who contends she is entitled to $28,298 in unpaid salary increases for the final six years of her term.

Adam Buente, the city’s deputy law director, wrote in a Thursday motion that Brown-Clark’s court complaint “should be dismissed because it fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.”

Buente wrote city council and Finance Director Kyle Miasek “acted within their charter and statutory authority” under Ohio Revised Code Section 1901.31, which addresses clerks of courts, “to set Brown-Clark’s salary.”

Brown-Clark filed the case in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court against the city and Miasek on Dec. 28, eight days after city council voted 4-3 against giving her a $7,181 raise for 2023.

After the vote, Brown-Clark said: “This is not over. I’m due that money. There are other avenues. This would have been the fair thing to do. This is an injustice.”

In Brown-Clark’s lawsuit, Kevin Daley, her attorney, wrote the ORC provision requires the city to pay her the money.

But in Buente’s motion to dismiss, he wrote that Brown-Clark’s complaint “rests upon a misreading” of that state law.

The law exempts certain cities with populations under 100,000 residents, including Youngstown, from having an appointed clerk of courts and requiring that person be elected.

Daley wrote in the lawsuit that Youngstown “is legislatively determined to be a municipality with a population greater than 100,000 for the purpose of calculating the clerk of court’s salary.”

Under that requirement, the clerk of courts would get 85% of the municipal court judge’s salary.

But Buente wrote the lawsuit should be dismissed because the statute doesn’t say that.

“The statute means what it says, and only what it says — that even though Youngstown has a population of less than 100,000, its municipal court clerk of court is to be elected, not appointed. Division A’s plain terms have nothing to do with setting Brown-Clark’s compensation, which is governed exclusively by Division C” of the law, he wrote.

“The city is under no duty to provide Brown-Clark more compensation than the amounts she received already,” Buente wrote.

The law “unambiguously — and without an exemption for the city of Youngstown — provides that its city council had the authority to set her salary,” he wrote.

The statute states that if a city’s population is under 100,000 and its court’s revenue is less than its expenditures “the clerk of court of a municipal court shall receive the annual compensation that the legislative authority prescribes,” Buente wrote.

Based on financial figures provided in the motion by Miasek, the court spent more than it received in each of the six years in question.

The city pays 60% of the Youngstown clerk of courts’ salary with Mahoning County paying the rest.

The rejected legislation by council would have increased the city’s portion of Brown-Clark’s annual salary from $67,389 to $74,570. Overall, her annual salary would have gone from $117,103 to $124,284.

In the lawsuit, Brown-Clark states the city and Miasek improperly froze her salary at the 2018 rate of $67,389. With salary increases under state law, Brown-Clark states she is owed $28,298 over the six years.

The city was served with the lawsuit Jan. 12 and hadn’t responded as of Wednesday.

Pay increases are included in the city’s master salary ordinance that council is supposed to approve.

When David Bozanich was city finance director, Brown-Clark would send him letters about her payroll increases, and it would be handled by his department.

But when Miasek took over, that stopped.

Miasek has said the paperwork he received from Brown-Clark was forwarded to the city’s law department.

The salary freeze now impacts Richard Vincent Hill, who replaced Brown-Clark in January as clerk of courts. Brown-Clark didn’t seek reelection last year after 24 years as clerk of courts.

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