The state auditor’s office plans to review cell phone records of the Akron mayor and council president as part of its 2011 audit of the city.
City leaders think the timing of the request is strange, coming amid an ongoing dispute between Akron and the auditor’s office about the city’s finances. Akron was the first Ohio city to be placed in the state’s new “fiscal caution” designation in October.
“It looks peculiar,” Mayor Don Plusquellic said. “I don’t know what this has to do with the books.”
Plusquellic said Akron will comply with Auditor Dave Yost’s request.
“There’s nothing there to hide — one way or another,” he said.
Carrie Bartunek, Yost’s spokeswoman, said her office doesn’t discuss ongoing audits. She said there is no correlation between the information requested for the new audit and the continuing discussion with Akron officials regarding the city’s finances.
“We work under objective standards driven by numbers and facts, without regard to politics,” she said.
Yost released Akron’s 2010 audit in early October, putting the city into the new fiscal caution category. He faulted Akron for having too many funds overall and too many funds with negative balances.
Akron submitted its second attempt Jan. 9 at a satisfactory plan for addressing Yost’s concerns, noting a significant reduction in the city’s number of funds and in the ones with negative balances. City leaders have said Akron has money elsewhere in the budget to cover any negative balances and that the city ended 2011 with a $5 million general fund carryover.
Akron officials have said they disagree with Yost’s conclusions but will attempt to address his concerns. The city released a letter last week from Roy Ray, a former Akron mayor, state senator and vice president of finance for the University of Akron. He said he didn’t think Akron deserved to be in fiscal caution.
Ray, like Yost, is a Republican.
Yost’s office is still reviewing the city’s second proposal.
In the meantime, Yost’s office has begun Akron’s 2011 audit. An assistant auditor visited Akron on Jan. 9 to go over materials her office needed. Among the documents were bills for city-issued cell phones from the past year of three randomly selected employees in Akron’s Public Service Department, Plusquellic and Council President Marco Sommerville.
Assistant Law Director Tammy Kalail said the auditor’s office normally examines the cell phone records of five Akron employees selected at random. She said the auditor looks to see if the employees are complying with the city’s cell phone policy, which, for example, requires employees to pay a $6 monthly fee for limited personal use or to reimburse the city for the cost of personal calls.
Kalail said Plusquellic pays the $6 monthly fee; Sommerville does not. Both carry personal cell phones, as well as city-issued ones.
All current city council members carry a city-issued cell phone. Altogether, Akron has 383 cell phones or other cellular devices its employees use. Some are pool phones any employee in a certain department can use.
Kalail said she was aware the auditor’s office could look over the cell phone records of elected officials.
“I knew this was something they could ask for, but they hadn’t exercised it in the past,” she said.
Kalail said she expects to have the records the auditor’s office requested ready for them to review by the end of the month. She said she needs to look into whether any information must be redacted from the cell phone records.
Stephanie Warsmith can be reached at 330-996-3705 or swarsmith@thebeaconjournal.com.
