Trumbull County’s race for the Republican nomination for the auditor’s seat will be contentious next month as first-term auditor Martha Yoder tries to fend off Mahoning County’s chief deputy auditor Stacy A. Marling and former State Rep. Mike Loychik for the right to run in November’s general election.

MARLING

Marling, 47, has worked in Mahoning’s auditor office since 2007 and has been its chief deputy since 2015. She also has been the fiscal officer in Bazetta since 2021.

A Cortland native, Marling is a graduate of Lakeview High School and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting from Youngstown State University.

If elected, Marling believes she will be able to immediately identify and begin solving any shortcomings that exist in the auditor’s office because it uses the same software system used in Mahoning.

“I will be able to go in on day one to see if they are utilizing the software to the best of their abilities,” she said. “We went live using the software in 2009 and I know it inside and out.”

If elected, Marling said she expects to learn the strengths and weaknesses of members of the auditor office.

“I will work to get the weaknesses fixed,” she said.

As Bazetta’s fiscal officer, Marling was involved in the issue in which the county sent the township’s tax money to a false bank account after being notified the township changed its banking information.

Yoder sought to fight against having to repay Bazetta the approximately $80,000 the township lost during the electronic scam, noting that Marling’s office had disengaged its two-factor authentication system, which allowed the breach to take place.

However, after court hearings in Trumbull County and the 11th District Court of Appeals, the county auditor’s office repaid the township.

“People have tried to scam us here too,” Marling said.

She admits turning off the township’s multi-factor authentication software because it was interfering with the township’s payroll process.

“My email was hacked,” Marling said. “However, the email that was sent originally to the auditor’s office had a lot of red flags. If somebody picked up the phone and called, this would not have ever happened. We’ve known that you do not accept any emails for changing banking information.”

Marling said she accepted the blame for her part in the scam. However, she added that nothing was done by Yoder’s office to accept blame.

Marling noted the state auditor’s office had for some time sent many emails, policies and checklists about the possibility of this type of email scam and what to do if it happens.

“My office has had policies for these processes for more than a year,” Marling said. “She never told her employees.”

If elected, Marling expects to be more receptive to working with other elected officials and department heads than what she said appears to be happening now, noting a dispute between Trumbull County Engineer David DeChristofaro and Yoder’s office on the tax mapping program and its use.

DeChristofaro said the tax mapping, by state law, should be handled in the engineer’s office. Yoder, however, argues the GIS (Geographic Information System) belongs to the auditor’s office and must remain in it. Tax mapping is one of the services done with GIS.

In an effort to come to a solution to the dispute, the prosecutor’s office is sending questions to the state attorney general’s office to get a more definitive legal response to each side’s concerns.

“We (in Mahoning county) have a GIS board that includes the auditor, commissioner and the engineers,” Marling said. The auditor is the administrator of the GIS. It is funded by the three departments.

“We work very well with (Mahoning’s) engineering department,” she said. “We let them do what they need to get done.”

Marling noted she is ready to take on the challenge of running Trumbull’s auditor’s office.

“I’ve been here (Mahoning County Auditor’s Office) so long, my job is not really challenging anymore,” she said. “It is smooth sailing and that’s the way we like it. I would love to do that for Trumbull County.”

YODER

Yoder, 61, a first-term county auditor, operated Yoder Support Living Services for 29 years. She also served as a township trustee for four years.

When she ran for office three years ago, Yoder emphasized wanting to increase accessibility, transparency and fiscal responsibility.

“We made a lot of progress,” Yoder said. “We revamped our website to make information more accessible by moving those things that could be legally done online. In the second term, we will do more of that.”

During the 2024 revaluation process, the auditor’s office had formal hearings to educate people about what was being done and how residents could challenge their evaluations.

Yoder said she has worked with other county officials to control costs, including reducing her staff by 9%, primarily by not replacing positions of people who leave through retirement.

Although she has sought to work closely with the commissioners — especially during hearings when they were distributing American Rescue Plan funds — Yoder last year warned if they did not provide the budget her office requested, they would have been forced to close the office before the end of the year.

“The auditor’s office is a contributor to the county’s budget,” Yoder said. “We bring in more money than we are using. We brought in $600,000 over the past three years. Last year, we brought in $4 million and our budget was $3.7 million.”

Yoder would like to have the majority of county financial transfers done through bank ACH system accounts.

“This small thing would save the county a lot of money,” she said.

One of the first things that took Yoder by surprise when she took office was having to catch up with CAUV transfers that she said had previously been done incorrectly. The property values attached to county farmlands had been assigned incorrectly for three years, she said.

“I found out on my second day,” she said. “We learned a lot. We figured out what happened and what we needed to do to correct it. The initial correction was $2 million in refunds.”

During the county’s revision process, Yoder said what had previously been done was not equitable for all Trumbull property owners.

“There were people who would call and get their evaluations done without going through the process, others could not,” she said. “Rules were not being followed. We spent the last couple years streamlining the process. It is more equitable. All people are being treated the same.

“Some people are not happy,” Yoder continued. “Compliance is something I follow.”

Yoder suggested in the “cyberhack” of Bazetta’s email that she should not have assumed that her office’s past practice was best for identifying potentially altered bank information for entities.

“I should have verified that my office was following best practice for altering bank information,” Yoder said.

After the incident, Yoder told her employees to follow established practice for altering bank information for payroll and vendors. There then was a review of those policies and the office established a written standard operating procedure.

Yoder personally paid all legal fees from her decision to challenge in court repaying the funds that were lost in the cyberhack. She paid $23,930.92 in attorney fees, as well as $8,497.95 that CORSA did not pay on the 11th District Court of Appeals.

“I voluntarily chose to do this because I am the one who chose to fight the writ of mandamus,” she said. “I did not think the taxpayers should have to pay for my choice.”

While admitting some fault, Yoder stressed that the 11th District Court of Appeals in its ruling noted ” … the township and the county are both victims of a modern-day heist.”

The dispute with Christofaro’s office on the tax map centers of Yoder’s belief that the GIS, which is used as part of the tax map, is controlled by and should remain in her office, because it also is used for appraisal purposes above and beyond those utilized for a tax map.

When asked about the best way to resolve the dispute, Yoder said: “Because we disagree on those duties, it is best to wait for the Attorney General’s opinion.”

LOYCHIK

Loychik, 37, who served in the Ohio House of Representatives from 2020-24, is seeking to become Trumbull’s auditor because he believes there is a lack of leadership in the office.

Loychick served in the U.S. Air Force for eight years. He was a staff sergeant when he completed his last term.

He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Science and Management from Columbia Southern University and is working on a master’s degree in business administration, also from CSU. He expects to graduate this year.

He represented the state’s 63rd District from 2021-22, before redistricting took place. He represented the 65th District from 2023-24.

He operates two businesses, Jace Consulting Inc., which he started in 2025, and Atlantic Pressure Washing Solutions LLC., which he began in 2015.

“The reason I’m running is because taxpayers are not being treated fairly right now from the (auditor’s) office and because their (property tax) values are based on very unique market values from the COVID era,” Loychik said.

Loychik said the auditor’s office has tools available that should enable it to do reappraisals to adjust the market values of homes that help taxpayers.

“People are being taxed out of their homes,” Loychik said. “It is my belief that the sales data is not up to date or accurate. There is now an antiquated system being used in the office.”

Loychik said the market sales data in the office must be accurate.

He questions how the office is using its GIS and tax mapping systems. He suggests Trumbull residents have a lack of trust in how the auditor’s office is being operated.

Loychik said he was told by residents that they were not being treated fairly when they sought to appeal their property valuations.

“The appeals process is nonexistent,” he said. “I will have an open-door office. We just want to make things more accurate. There is a lack of trust.”

The county auditor does not have to be an accountant or be a certified public accountant, he said.

“The county auditor is a watchdog. It is an administrative position that requires leadership,” Loychik said.

He notes that a lot of his experience comes from being a state representative and his service in the Air Force.

“Looking back to the state representative term, I was appointed to the finance committee and finance committee infrastructure,” Loychik said. “We were dealing with multi-billion dollar appropriations throughout the state. We were dealing with a lot of federal funding and ARP dollars.”

Because of his experiences in the state house, Loychick said he knows how to read tax legislation and understands tax policy.

“I can say what is good for the county and what is bad for the county,” he said.

Loychik would like to bring in software he said is being used in various state offices that will modernize Trumbull’s auditor’s office operations and bring it to the 21st century.

“My goal is to bring Trumbull County to being a frontrunner in the state in technology,” he said. “It will enable us to cut some of the fat off the budget.”

“What is lacking in the office is leadership,” Loychik said. “I just don’t think (Yoder) has the leadership qualities to manage the staff.”