The state auditor has cleared Akron City Council of any wrongdoing related to newsletters it published that advocated for and against local and statewide issues.
The Republican members of the Summit County elections board claimed council violated elections laws by using taxpayer dollars to pay for the newsletters that took a position on ballot issues. Secretary of State Jon Husted broke a tie vote, siding with the board’s Democratic members, against referring this question to the Summit County prosecutor. He did, however, order the board to submit the matter to Auditor Dave Yost.
Yost, in a management letter that accompanied a recent audit of the city, said “public money generally cannot be used to advocate for or against a ballot issue,” and pointed to a section of the Ohio Revised Code. He added, though, that “these provisions do not apply to a ‘municipal corporation that has adopted a charter’ ” like Akron.
“The city charter does not contain a prohibition against the use of public funds to support or oppose the passage of a levy or bond issue,” Yost concluded. “The general prohibition against spending public money for or against a ballot issue does not apply, and no comment or finding is supported.”
This was the argument Don McTigue, a Columbus attorney hired by the city, made to the elections board about why the newsletters weren’t a violation.
In an unrelated issue, Yost’s office as part of its 2011 audit of the city reviewed cell phone records of Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic and Council President Marco Sommerville and found nothing wrong.
The cell phone records weren’t mentioned in the audit because “no problems were found,” Carrie Bartunek, a spokeswoman for Yost, said this week.
Bartunek said the auditor’s office routinely reviews selected officials’ phone records as part of its auditing process.
Akron leaders, however, questioned in January whether Yost’s selection of Plusquellic and Sommerville’s phone records was related to an ongoing dispute between Akron and the auditor’s office about the city’s finances. Akron was the first Ohio city to be placed in the state’s newly created “fiscal caution” designation in October 2011. Plusquellic said at the time that there was “nothing there to hide” with the phone records.
Yost released a statement along with his 2011 audit of Akron on Oct. 9 that said the city had made “significant progress” toward addressing the concerns he raised the previous year. Akron is still working its way through a plan the city created — and Yost approved — to remedy the problems he highlighted with the city’s accounting practices.
Stephanie Warsmith can be reached at 330-996-3705 or swarsmith@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow on Twitter: @swarsmith. Read the Beacon Journal’s political blog at www.ohio.com/blogs/ohio-politics.