Last city wellness center employee to leave this week

Athletic director Scott MacMillan ends tenure

NILES -- The last city employee of the wellness center is ending his tenure as athletic director Thursday.

Mayor Tom Scarnecchia said he accepted Scott MacMillan's resignation and that the city's park director will oversee the facility for now.

"It is with a heavy heart, because I love this facility and I hope it remains a community center," MacMillan said. "But it is time; they are moving in a different direction, and I am ready to spend more time with my grandkids and parents."

MacMillan said he scheduled soccer events for the facility through March and lined up larger bookings through 2017 and into 2018.

The rest of the staff at the center is employed through LaborMax Staffing. The center lost several other city employees over the last few years. Its management was restructured under the city's earliest financial recovery plan implemented by the previous administration after the city was placed in fiscal emergency by the Ohio Auditor of State in October 2014.

MacMillan was dropped from a full-time director making $50,000 a year to part-time director earning $25,000. His primary responsibility was supposed to be scheduling; another part-time director was included in the restructuring, but left shortly after it was implemented. MacMillan was left to run the facility on a part-time basis.

MacMillan said he tried to resign in September, but Scarnecchia talked him out of it.

The year was full of strife for the center.

State audit reports revealed poor internal controls over money, including missing funds for beverages. The center was continuing to use a petty cash fund despite an order at the beginning of the year for the practice to end in all departments. And although the center made about $300,000 in revenue in the last year, its debt obligations grew to be too much. Some of the fiscal recovery plan goals the city's books were counting on weren't met or were met too late in the year to save money, including a new labor contract that was signed months after the anticipated savings was calculated to arrive. The center's naming rights were never bid out.

The cash-strapped general fund had to supplement the center's budget.

But if a plan to lease out the Mayor Ralph A. Infante Wellness Center on Sharkey Drive succeeds, the city stands to save at least $160,000, according to the recovery plan. Council authorized the safety service director to advertise for bids Dec. 21

Council President Robert Marino warned the administration to have a "quick" and "decisive" back up plan to roll out in case there are no good takers for the lease. Each month that goes by without leasing the building means the tight general fund budget could be upset.

Bids will be accepted for five weeks before they are opened. The park board also needs to pass a resolution to move forward with the leasing plan before it can be implemented.

A reorganization of the way the city manages the center also occurred this year. The Wellness Center Advisory Board, which met sparsely over the last few years, was dissolved and control was handed over to the park board.

The recently reconvened board will call a meeting in early January, member Paul Hake said.