VIENNA — The township’s fiscal officer was the center of attention once again at Monday’s trustees meeting as residents and officials questioned why things weren’t getting done — namely paying employees and vendors.

Ahead of Monday’s regular meeting, Chad Stidham, a resident and volunteer firefighter, alleged that “multiple” part-time EMS employees have started working, but are complaining of not being paid.

“The excuse is thrown around that (Fiscal Officer) Jason Miner is the problem,” Stidham said. “As trustees, is there anything we can do to try and pay these people that are working hours and not being compensated?”

Trustee Mike Haddle said he had been on the phone with fire Chief Gus Birch, noting that Stidham wasn’t bringing forth anything that officials did not already know.

Stidham questioned the alleged lack of payments to vendors in the township, noting that one had not been paid in four months, another was coming up on three months, and a person sitting nearby said it was multiple months for him, too. H.F. Everett Gas & Oil, a gas station that departments get fuel from, was among them.

Haddle said they signed a check for Everett at their last meeting, but residents said the company hasn’t received the payments yet — for four months, to be exact. He said he spoke with Willie’s Auto over the weekend about their payment and Hunters Asphalt did get paid.

Mark Wolanzyk, owner of Warren-based Mr. PC Inc, confirmed the township was up to date with their payments to him.

Jacqueline Sage, another resident, asked what the delay was with public records requests to the township, noting later that she was waiting on two requests.

“I don’t know. I don’t do those; so you keep saying I’m withholding records from you. I don’t handle those,” Haddle said. “A lot of the records you’re requesting, Jason has them on his computer. I don’t have direct access.”

Sage said she was told Miner doesn’t have the records on his computer, but Haddle clarified that financial records were on the township’s financial computer, adding that he cannot log in and pull that information — only Miner could pull them and print them out.

Sage questioned why Miner wasn’t doing his job, noting that it has been over a month, it was a “simple” request. She added she wasn’t the only one with active requests. Sage said she has a complaint form for the state auditor’s office filled out, but she was waiting until Monday’s meeting before she filed it.

As Monday’s regular meeting kicked off, it was revealed that trustees didn’t have the previous meeting minutes, payroll, bills and warrants or financial statements. As part of his trustee report, Phil Pegg said he personally paid for the township’s Visa and its 911 fee with his own card to keep things running — which he elaborated upon during public comments.

“The credit cards haven’t been working. Dan Morgan runs those systems over in Howland — for us, he’s the one who runs the website. Basically, our subscriptions expired,” Pegg said. “The old numbers that we had, well we turned off all the credit cards. We’ve been unable to get the credit card numbers from Jason, so I’ve been paying them myself then invoicing him.”

Pegg admitted he was behind in some money.

“Why does this keep happening? There’s nothing we can do to get this going so we can pay things?” Tom Powell, a resident, said. “You have no control? We just went through this; this is getting bad again.”

Pegg repeated what he said many months ago: that the fiscal officer doesn’t answer to the trustees and they can’t even admonish him, noting that he answers to Keith Faber, the auditor of state.

“Keith Faber prides himself on putting people in jail, and we’ve seen that once here,” Pegg said, referring to former fiscal officer Linda McCullough. “At the same time, to get something enforced, it’s extremely difficult. We can call and complain, but that’s all we can do. The power rests in Columbus.”

THE DAY AFTER

Pegg said he confronted Miner about some of the topics brought up, such as some EMS employees not being paid. Since that meeting, however, Pegg said he received a call from the township’s maintenance department about a water issue at the police department.

An employee from the department went to Menards, where the township has an account, to buy an extension valve to remedy the issue.

“He needed to get a padlock for the cemetery and one of those extension valves; come to find out, the lady there told the maintenance guy that he (Miner) hasn’t paid since June,” Pegg said. “Which, according to him, that’s not true, he just paid last month.”

Regarding the vendors, such as Hunters Asphalt, Pegg deemed the lack of payments to be a threat to the township’s services.

“Do you really think that they’re going to want to do any work for us when they know it’s going to take them three months to get paid?” Pegg said. “And it’s the same thing as over at the fire station. If he doesn’t pay those medics, trust me, there are a lot of other jobs they could go out and get and not have to worry about whether they’re going to get paid correctly or not.”

Pegg said they have employees waiting on uniform allowances, which Miner claims have to go through the fiscal commission.

“Some of it does, but some of it doesn’t. It’s just, it’s like (McCullough is) still there. All I get is excuses all the time,” Pegg said.

Birch admitted that the fire department had a couple of issues with payroll initially since restarting the program Sept. 5, with paramedics initially being paid the wrong rate. Birch said since then, Miner has corrected the issue.

Birch said there was one department employee who was shorted on a paycheck, but that too was to be rectified today, according to an email from Miner.

“He did take care of the pay rate; that was fixed. The one individual who didn’t receive a paycheck, he still didn’t receive his initial paycheck,” Birch said. “The other one, the hours she was shorted were supposed to be added to this check, which it wasn’t.”

Birch echoed Pegg’s concerns about employees not getting paid properly and the idea that it would make it difficult for employees to come work for the department.

“When they come here, they expect to be paid, as does everybody. It’s difficult enough with our past history of what happened here, over the years,” Birch said. “It’s hard enough to get people to come here, and when you throw in the fact that they’re not getting paid properly, it makes it even more difficult for me.”

“I’m trying to rebuild a fire department here, and this does not help,” he added.

MINER’S RESPONSE

Miner, who wasn’t at Monday’s regular meeting for personal reasons, said that him being the problem regarding fire department employees not getting paid was untrue.

“The problem was, their hours were incorrectly submitted or just not submitted at all,” Miner said. “For example, one of the part-time EMS employees was shorted 12 hours because it was submitted incorrectly to my office.”

Miner said regardless of who individuals want to blame, the issues have been corrected.

In terms of the unfulfilled public records requests, such as Sage’s, he said it was sent to her.

“When I receive a records request for a personnel file, it goes to our attorney. Our attorney is a full-time assistant prosecutor in Ashtabula County,” Miner said. “She’s got a full-time job, I’ve got a full-time job, and this is supposed to be part-time for all of us, so I don’t spend 30 hours a week dedicated to Jacqueline Sage’s public records requests.”

In terms of bills not being paid, Miner said there are bills that haven’t been paid that date back to 2022, and he didn’t understand the issue.

Miner said the allegation that Menard’s hasn’t been paid since June was also untrue, and that they were paid Tuesday.

He said regardless of what people might say, the township is making progress and has money stored away for the winter months. Miner also noted that for the first time in a long time, the township isn’t at risk of laying off employees.

“I think that’s a big milestone for us, but naturally, when I have to be the bad guy all the time and say, ‘no, you actually can’t buy this’ or ‘we can’t do this,’ people tend to dislike me,” Miner said. “And that’s OK, I’m OK with that. It comes down to doing the right thing; I’m okay with being a bad guy, as long as the township does not go bankrupt again.”