County extends theft inquiry
Investigation focuses on five maintenance employees.
TROY —
Miami County Sheriff Charles Cox said the investigation of alleged theft in the Miami County maintenance department “easily will take another month” as authorities sort out how truckloads of equipment ended up at employees’ homes.
A Dayton Daily News analysis of the department’s 2011 expenditures reveal many purchased items, such as portable generators, portable heaters and lawn mowers, did not appear on the department’s January 2012 inventory list.
The investigation and suspension of five employees has focused attention on the maintenance department’s spending practices, its rising budget and its oversight by county commissioners.
Maintenance department head Jarrod Harrah oversees seven full-time maintenance employees and reports to the county commissioners. But Harrah had autonomy to use purchase orders and only needed resolutions for singular items that cost more than $1,000. The department is responsible for 14 buildings.
Harrah, 39, the county’s facilities and safety director, and employee Bruce Ball, 61, were both suspended without pay. Harrah’s personnel file shows his job performance reviews have gone downhill in recent years to “clearly below reasonable expectations.”
Three other maintenance workers — Tony Canfarelli, 55, Rob Scherer, 45, and Stan Maitlen II, 48, — were suspended with pay pending the investigation.
Criminal charges have not yet been filed in part because Miami County Prosecutor Gary Nasal is asking for a special prosecutor due to his professional, personal and political relationship with Harrah.
A former Troy city councilman, Harrah is on the county Republican Central Committee and president of the GOP Men’s Club.
County commissioners, in suspending the five on May 29, listed Ohio Revised Code sections of allegations of theft in office, having personal interest in a contract and tampering with records and tampering with evidence.
A message seeking comment about the department’s oversight from County Commission President John W. “Bud” O’Brien was not returned. Harrah hasn’t returned two messages seeking comment.
The allegations came “several weeks ago” from a person Cox would not identify. A search of records was followed by surveillance.
“We were able to witness some of the things that will come out,” Cox said. Those allegedly involved were interviewed starting May 29 and at least two trucks of countyowned property were taken from the home of two employees that day, Cox said. While Cox was answering questions Thursday outside his office, detectives came into the department with bags full of more items.
Investigators are looking into alleged use of county money to buy an array of tools that were converted to personal use by employees.
Some of the property purchased with county money was given to businesses and other individuals, and some was sold, Cox said. The investigation has been expanded to include vendors used by the county and allegations that free items, such as a furnace, were given to the county in exchange for future business, Cox said.
“They don’t tell us why they need it,” Miami County Auditor’s Office Accounting Supervisor Sharon Feltner said of purchase orders from the maintenance director. “That’s up to the department head. . . . They fall under the county commissioners.”
Feltner said resolutions used to be needed for anything above $500 but that’s been upped to $1,000.
Year 2011 maintenance department expenditure records requested from the Miami County Auditor’s Office show many purchased items that are not on the January 2012 inventory.
• In December 2010 and January 2011, the department bought nine reciprocating saw blades from Grainger, costing $923.34. The department’s 2012 inventory shows it has just two reciprocating saws.
• The department purchased three portable generators at a cost of $1,587 and two portable heaters costing $659.10. None of those items appear on the 2012 inventory list.
• The department spent $3,500 at Greentech Inc. for three Dixie Chopper lawn mowers, none of which are on the inventory list.
Asked if anyone regularly double-checks the maintenance department’s actual inventory against the inventory report or the expenditure list, Feltner said: “I cannot tell you that. To most people, it comes in the trust that you have with your department head.”
Employee personnel records show Ball, Scherer, Canfarelli and Maitlen did not face any disciplinary action during their county employ. Ball, who was in the Air Force for more than 20 years and is local American Legion post commander, was hired in 2001; Scherer in 2000, Canfarelli in 2007 and Maitlen in August 2011.
Harrah’s personnel records show he initially received favorable job reviews following his hiring in November 2005. An August 2006 evaluation form did not give an overall performance rating but noted he had “taken on the director’s role of developing and managing the department budget.”
Evaluations in 20072009 for the previous years listed overall performance as “above normal expectations” in 2007 and “considerably above normal expectations in 2008-2010. An evaluation dated February 2011 had the overall performance as “minimally satisfactory” followed by a spring 2012 overall evaluation of “clearly below reasonable expectations.”
Two months before, in February 2012, the commission and Harrah signed a last chance agreement after he had received verbal discipline for falling behind, not being at work and lying about his whereabouts.
Harrah told commissioners he was having personal and health problems, the documents state. Under the last chance agreement, he was to, by May 10, undergo an alcohol assessment, participate in a consumer counseling program and attend a codependent counseling program. A notice in his personnel file dated May 10 stated those requirements had been met.