Challenger questions contract by auditor
The race for Franklin County auditor traditionally is a campaign dominated by talk of taxes, property values and real-estate know-how.
Those issues are certainly in play this year in the contest between Republican incumbent Clarence Mingo, who was appointed to the office in 2009 and won election the following year, and his Democratic challenger, Mike Schadek, a lawyer and Upper Arlington City Council member.
Overshadowing those issues, though, has been persistent talk and campaign rhetoric about a contract Mingo awarded to his former chief of staff, Jerzell Pierre-Louis.
She had asked for 18 months of pay after she said she lost her job unfairly because she questioned Mingo about ru-
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mors that he had had an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate. Mingo said Pierre-Louis left because he was reorganizing the office and wanted to take it in a new direction.
About six months later, Mingo agreed to pay PierreLouis $135,000 to coordinate the office’s informal propertyvalue review. A month before that contract was signed, Pierre-Louis sent Mingo a letter saying that the rumors were untrue and the woman making the allegations had retracted them.
Mingo, 42, of New Albany, has always said no inappropriate behavior took place. He said he gave Pierre-Louis the contract because she had previously coordinated the work and it would free his staff to focus on important technology updates in the office.
He said last week that Schadek’s preoccupation with the contract is dirty politics, something Mingo said he has sought to stay above in the campaign.
“My opponent’s focus on it is solely rooted in the fact that this is an election year,” Mingo said. “I view my opponent’s talk about this as typical election-year partisan nonsense. And it will not be rewarded in November.”
He said a review of the contract by state Auditor Dave Yost’s office found that no taxpayer money had been misspent and that Mingo had asked for the review precisely because he wanted to be transparent with voters about any concerns the contract raised.
Yost’s office, which didn’t find any wrongdoing on Mingo’s part, did take some issue with the contract, however, because it did not require Pierre-Louis to document her time and it required the county auditor to pay the full cost of the contract even if he terminated it early.
Those provisions caused Yost’s office to forward the report to the Ohio Ethics Commission for review. Democrats, including Schadek, were quick to point that out in campaign statements.
Schadek, 46, of Upper Arlington, said the contract became part of his campaign only because Mingo has refused to answer questions about the rumors of inappropriate behavior cited by Pierre-Louis and whether the contract was meant to buy her silence. He said that lack of transparency should alarm voters and is not something that would happen if he ran the office.
“This is a very serious issue, and the residents deserve answers,” Schadek said. “These questions have nothing to do with Democrat or Republican, incumbent or challenger. This is about, fundamentally, whether you’re pursuing policies of good government and transparency.”
Mingo said there are moreimportant issues for voters to be concerned about on Election Day, Nov. 4, such as who is better-suited to lead the county through the countywide property reappraisal in 2017.
Mingo said he has a track record of listening to taxpayers and has given them an unprecedented level of access and say in the process that determines their property values and taxes. He said he has done so through the informal value reviews; the addition of a mediation process before the county Board of Revision, on which he sits; and upgrades to the office’s website, which provides increasingly detailed information for property owners.
He said the number of people who sought to change their property values in 2011 was a direct reflection of the fact that his office included property owners in the process as never before. He also noted that, although the number of people challenging their values after the 2011 reappraisal was high, at about 26,000, it represented just 6 percent of the properties in the county.
So far this year, about 6,200 people have challenged their property values at informal reviews, representing about 1 percent of county properties.
Mingo also said that, through his office’s outreach, the number of senior citizens in the county who have taken advantage of the state’s homestead exemption on their property taxes increased from about 3,700 a year before he took office to more than 12,000 last year.
Schadek said it is time for a change in the office, which a Republican has held for more than 70 years.
He said he would have three major goals to accomplish in his first 100 days, beginning with a top-to-bottom review of how the office functions. Saying he wants to “audit the auditor’s office,” Schadek said he would review every contract to make sure tax dollars are being safeguarded.
Next, he wants to review best practices of other auditors’ offices in Ohio to ensure that efficiencies developed elsewhere are not being missed in Franklin County.
Finally, he said, he would sit down with every employee and make sure everyone is treated with respect and dignity and all are working together. He said he has no intention of “cleaning house” in the office, as there are too many hardworking employees and too much institutional knowledge he wouldn’t want to lose in a major transition.
The Franklin County auditor makes $93,985 a year.