Crawford County Auditor clarifies official numbers

By Robin Hidebrand,

Craw­ford County Auditor

On March 6, Repub­li­can vot­ers will choose their party’s can­di­date to run for County Pros­e­cu­tor in Novem­ber. Pub­lic records requests have been made to the County Audi­tor for cer­tain finan­cial data of the County Prosecutor’s Office. I AM CONCERNED THAT VOTERS MAY BE UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT THE COUNTY AUDITOR IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CALCULATED PERCENTAGES AND BAR GRAPHS THAT HAVE BEEN PRESENTED AS FACTS IN RECENT NEWSPAPER ADS AND OPEN FORUM LETTERS. This infor­ma­tion was NOT COMPILED BY THE COUNTY AUDITOR and is NOT ACCURATE.

I think it’s impor­tant to pro­vide vot­ers with FACTUAL finan­cial data from the County’s audited Com­pre­hen­sive Annual Finan­cial Reports; and from County finan­cial records, which are a mat­ter of pub­lic record.

• Since 2003, (the first full year that Mr. Flegm was County Pros­e­cu­tor, and respon­si­ble for sub­mit­ting the Prosecutor’s bud­get to the Board of County Com­mis­sion­ers for con­sid­er­a­tion) the Prosecutor’s bud­get increased 28.09%; OR on aver­age 3.12% annu­ally. Actual expen­di­tures paid through 2011 have increased 24.77%; OR on aver­age 3.10% annually.

• By law, the rate that the Board of County Com­mis­sion­ers estab­lished in 2000 for the tax­pay­ers oblig­a­tion of defend­ing indi­vid­u­als who are unable to pay for an attor­ney in our com­mu­nity, is $60.00 per hour. IN OTHER WORDS, THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS DETERMINED THAT THE LOCAL RATE THAT A PRIVATE ATTORNEY SHOULD BE PAID FOR GOVERNMENT SERVICES RENDERED IS $60.00 PER HOUR.

• Mr. Flegm’s Assis­tant is paid $62.71 per hour.

• Mr. Flegm’s oppo­nent is paid by the County, on a part-time basis, an hourly rate of $60.00.

• Mr. Flegm’s oppo­nent has earned $84,012 from the County since 2003 in his capac­ity as a part-time City Pros­e­cu­tor. These pay­ments are in addi­tion to his annual salary paid by the City of Bucyrus.

• Two local defense attor­neys sup­port­ing Mr. Flegm’s oppo­nent are also paid by the tax­pay­ers of this County $60.00 per hour, and have received a com­bined total of $320,371.48 in tax­payer monies since 2007.

Fur­ther­more, I AM CONCERNED THAT EMPLOYEE SALARIES HAVE BECOME A TARGET IN THIS CAMPAIGN. Each elected office­holder is charged in accor­dance with Ohio law for the over­sight and man­age­ment of their respec­tive offices. Through­out County gov­ern­ment there are MANY EMPLOYEES WHO ARE PAID MORE THAN CERTAIN ELECTED OFFICIALS of the County. Through­out our County, there are MANY CITY EMPLOYEES PAID MORE THAN COUNTY ELECTED OFFICIALS.

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN AND HOW IS THIS RELEVANT TO THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE OFFICE? More impor­tantly, how do we as vot­ers gain a com­pre­hen­sive under­stand­ing of the facts to make an informed deci­sion so that we are not just react­ing to one or two pieces of infor­ma­tion, that if taken out of con­text, appears to be excessive?

I would encour­age the vot­ers to look fur­ther into the num­bers, and to try and get a bet­ter under­stand­ing of the legal respon­si­bil­i­ties of the County Prosecutor’s Office.

Is Mr. Flegm’s office effec­tive in the pros­e­cu­tion of crim­i­nals? Why are cer­tain indi­vid­u­als with the defense bar, and Mr. Flegm’s oppo­nent, so deter­mined that Mr. Flegm’s assis­tant is paid too much when the rate of pay is only $2.71 more per hour than what these defense attor­neys, and Mr. Flegm’s oppo­nent, are paid by the County?

I would respect­fully sug­gest that VOTERS BEWARE of finan­cial data that has been spun in many dif­fer­ent ways, and used to fur­ther the type of mis­in­for­ma­tion and rhetoric that isn’t nec­es­sary or wanted by most of us when decid­ing who to vote for as County Prosecutor

I will con­clude with one final ques­tion for vot­ers, HOW IS FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY MEASURED? As County Audi­tor, I try to mea­sure fis­cal respon­si­bil­ity by look­ing at the ACTUAL EXPENDITURES asso­ci­ated with a par­tic­u­lar depart­ment or office. I also look at the amount of rev­enue that a depart­ment or office is able to gen­er­ate through user fees (albeit many are set by law), on-going oper­at­ing grants, or fed­eral and state reim­burse­ments for work already being per­formed and which help off­set the cost of oper­a­tion for that depart­ment or office. I also con­sider what action an offi­cial has taken dur­ing their tenure to help increase the gen­eral oper­at­ing rev­enues of the County’s Gen­eral Oper­at­ing Fund, which BENEFITS MANY OTHER COUNTY OFFICES.

County Pros­e­cu­tor Stan Flegm pro­vided the legal assis­tance to the Board of County Com­mis­sion­ers to pri­va­tize the County Land­fill Oper­a­tion. The pri­va­ti­za­tion of the land­fill was crit­i­cal because the County’s pop­u­la­tion did not gen­er­ate enough waste, and there­fore rev­enues, to pay for the actual costs of oper­at­ing a County-owned land­fill. As such, the County’s Gen­eral Oper­at­ing Fund was sub­si­diz­ing, through cash flow loans, the land­fill oper­a­tion. These Gen­eral Fund sub­si­dies were not a viable long-term finan­cial solu­tion for the land­fill oper­a­tion, and user fees could not be increased enough to off­set the cost of oper­a­tions. Sim­ply put: gov­ern­ment could not com­pete with the pri­vate sec­tor for the waste streams nec­es­sary to make the landfill’s finan­cial oper­a­tion viable on a long term basis.

The Board of County Com­mis­sion­ers, with the assis­tance of Pros­e­cu­tor Flegm, took the bold step of pri­va­tiz­ing the County Land­fill. The pri­va­ti­za­tion of the land­fill has gen­er­ated $1,456,941.29 in ADDITIONAL REVENUES for the County’s Gen­eral Oper­at­ing Fund just since 2010, and will con­tinue to gen­er­ate addi­tional rev­enues as the debt oblig­a­tion for the land­fill is paid, and as addi­tional lessor fees are col­lected. Mr. Flegm and the Board of County Com­mis­sion­ers demon­strated tremen­dous fore­sight and courage with the deci­sion to pri­va­tize the land­fill and the finan­cial returns for this deci­sion will ben­e­fit local cit­i­zens for years to come. As County Audi­tor, I con­sider the steps taken to pri­va­tize the County Land­fill as another good exam­ple of how fis­cal respon­si­bil­ity should be mea­sured because the addi­tional rev­enues real­ized with this deci­sion help to sup­port other County offices, includ­ing the var­i­ous Courts and law enforcement.

I have pro­vided vot­ers with rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion that is a mat­ter of pub­lic record and avail­able upon request. I WOULD CAUTION VOTERS TO CONSIDER THE FACT THAT JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE CITES THE COUNTY AUDITOR’S OFFICE AS THE OFFICE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DATA, DOESN’T MEAN THE OFFICE HAS COMPILED THE DATA TO INSURE THAT THE INFORMATION AND PERCENTAGES ARE PRESENTED ACCURATELY. Please know that MR. FLEGM has always approached his job with PROFESSIONALISM, INDEPENDENCE, FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY and, most impor­tantly, with the ETHICS that are crit­i­cal for a County Pros­e­cu­tor to do his job well while serv­ing the peo­ple of Craw­ford County.

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