Deputy fire chief to retire

Deputy Chief Jack Reall is retiring from the Columbus Fire Division effective Monday, a few months after an internal city investigative report alleged he participated in a payroll scheme that overpaid himself and others more than $440,000.

Reall, 52, has been involved in firefighting for more than 34 years and served nearly 30 years with the division since his hiring in December 1989. As deputy chief, he is paid more than $157,000 per year.

“I believe I made the community and Division better throughout my tenure,” Reall wrote in his retirement letter, which was submitted Tuesday.

A city report released in July raised serious questions about how Reall classified his time in the division’s computer Reall staffing system. Reall had marked himself on “company business vacancy,” which means an employee is unavailable for normal work responsibilities and has to be replaced by another employee, for hundreds of hours from 2016 to 2018. That caused the city’s costs to rise because it created a chain reaction among supervisors to perform Reall’s duties.

The report accused Reall of pretending to be on city work or training while he was getting paid by others and calculated that the amount of overpayment to supervisory fire division employees totaled up to $442,983.

The report recommended that Reall be fired and prosecuted or that the city seek recovery through a civil suit. That decision rests with Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein, who did not return a call Thursday night seeking comment.

Brad Koffel, Reall’s attorney, previously called the report “false and defamatory.”