12/08/02

The maintenance department had been spending about $5,348 a week on cleaning supplies, auditor's reports state.

By STEPHEN SIFF

and PEGGY SINKOVICH

VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF

WARREN -- Since purchasing power was taken away from the Trumbull County Maintenance Department, county expenditures on supplies have nearly dried up.

In the 11 weeks since Sept. 25, officials have spent about $9,000 on supplies to keep the toilet bowls clean, paper dispensers stocked and air smelling fresh in county buildings and the county jail.

In the weeks up to that point, the maintenance department was spending more than that for supplies every two weeks, according to records from the county auditor's office.

The maintenance department was stripped of buying power and the county switched to the state purchasing program on the recommendation of Prosecutor Dennis Watkins, who began investigating department practices after The Vindicator launched a continuing series focusing on questionable spending and record-keeping.

The maintenance department and some companies with which it did business are also being investigated by the FBI and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation.

The numbers: Since the power to order supplies was moved upstairs to the county commissioners' suite, the supply bill has dropped from about $5,348 a week to $849 a week, the records show.

The purchasing department has been allotted $130,809 this year -- increased over the course of the year from $125,000 by commissioners -- for the primary account used to buy supplies for most county buildings.

By the time commissioners moved to state purchasing in September and away from companies mostly selected with no competitive bidding, about $125,000 had been spent.

Supply purchases for the jail have also dropped dramatically. The maintenance department spent $78,243 before the switch, but expenses for the next 11 weeks dropped to $7,228.

Reasons: There is more than one explanation for the decline, said Auditor David Hines.

"At the end of the year, there is no money in the particular funds, and a lot of it has to do with the investigation," he said.

Generally, in the last few months of the year, county purchases drop by 20 or 30 percent as officials start scraping the bottom of the pot of money they were appropriated for the year, Hines said.

Often, they spend the last few months of the year working through inventory, waiting for the next year's annual appropriation to come through, he said.

Last year, however, the maintenance department spent $31,489 in September, October and November with just two janitorial-supply companies, Kinzua and Environmental Chemical.

Hines also noted that another partial explanation for the steep decline in purchases could lie in the huge amount of inventory the maintenance department accumulated when it still handled its own affairs.

"Offhand, I would think that just the inventory we had on hand is being depleted," said Joseph Angelo Jr., a county commissioner.

Waiting for probe: To get an accurate picture, it will be necessary to wait until investigations and the work of a committee studying county purchasing practices are completed, then compare this year to years past, he said.

If problems are found with the county's inventory-control system, they will be fixed, Angelo said. If any employees are found to have stolen from the county, they will be punished.

Employees of other departments conducted an inventory at the request of the prosecutor and found boxes of supplies stashed in storerooms throughout county buildings. There was no list of all supplies the county already owned.

Some cases of air freshener seemed to have been around long enough for rust to have formed on the cans.

"It is our belief that no one person could possibly know the extent of products available because there is a lack of account as to what products

actually exist, due to the large amount of products being housed in so many different locations," those who compiled the inventory report said.

For example, the maintenance department had on hand more than 350 cans of air freshener from only one of the half-dozen companies that sold the product.

This was among a series of stories that won first place for government reporting at the 2003 Ohio SPJ Awards and first place for investigative reporting at the 2002 Ohio AP Awards in The Vindicator's circulation class.