VIENNA — Township trustee Phil Pegg, who received criticism from Fiscal Officer Jason Miner in his resignation letter, responded to what he feels are allegations that unfairly blame trustees for the recent financial problems and fiscal emergency situation caused by former Fiscal Officer Linda McCullough.

Last week, township trustees accepted the resignation of Miner as fiscal officer effective Friday and named Heidi Brown as the new fiscal officer effective Saturday. Trustees have scheduled a special meeting for 6 p.m. today regarding the fiscal officer contract.

Pegg said he was advised not to comment on the financial situation involving McCullough, who was found guilty of stealing money and sentenced to eight years in prison.

“In the beginning, I was advised to not make any comments regarding this since I may have been called to testify in court. We are currently waiting for the forensic audit to come out and had hoped it would be in October,” Pegg said.

Miner in his statement said that Pegg saw himself as a king, committed ethical violations and hindered the growth of the township.

Pegg said he disagrees with Miner on hindering the future of the township, noting he has worked with companies to come to the community, He said the financial issues that put Vienna in fiscal emergency will be shown in the forensic audit of the township. Pegg said he expects the audit will state the trustees mismanaged the finances at the fire department.

Pegg said issues began in the fire department in 2019 with the ambulance service and the large amount of overtime for workers with some reaching 100 hours per week.

“The overtime issues in the fire department were ridiculous. There were things that occurred at the fire department with our EMS services during the time she was here that the trustees should have known more about, ” Pegg said.

He said in 2019, the township faced difficulty getting paramedics

Pegg said at one point the fire department ambulance “took on a life of its own with all the overtime. ”

“It was being mismanaged. There was very excessive overtime and poor scheduling that got out of control. There were things going on that were not known to the trustees,” he said.

He said McCullough’s stealing of township money is connected to the overspending in the fire department. Pegg said McCullough began misappropriating funds from other departments to cover what she was doing.

He said trustees were not aware McCullough was taking the money since payments are done electronically and not by paper checks, which trustees would have needed to sign. Pegg said state auditor investigators found out what was taking place because the bills were not being paid to Social Security, Internal Revenue Service and Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, which resulted in penalties. He said the accounts are now current.

He said McCullough is responsible for the penalties and fines of between $100,000 to $200,000. Pegg said trustees will have to sue McCullough in civil court.

Pegg said he brought up that while Miner was fiscal officer, there were some delinquent bills to companies and some employees did not get paid at times. Pegg said Miner did not inform trustees that he wasn’t paying the bills.