Toledo Commissioner Suspended in Tuition Reimbursement Flap
TOLEDO, Ohio - An under-the-radar suspension of the city's sewage and drainage services commissioner more than three months ago has left a number of city employees steamed and a lengthy, curious trail of unanswered questions.
Edward Moore was suspended without pay from June 2-6 after he received more than $5,000 from the city for classes he took at the University of Toledo, where he qualified for free tuition because his wife works there, according to documents obtained from the city by The Newsmeister.com.
Moore first collected money from the city in January, 2007 - one of three payments he received over 12 months. The issue did not surface until a city clerk uncovered the error early last spring. Moore returned the money about two months later.
Under Ohio law, theft in office exceeding $5,000 is a third-degree felony. Toledo police investigated Moore and found no criminal intent.
Moore repaid the city $5,066.38, said city public utilities Director David Leffler, in a June 13 memo to Peg Wallace, Toledo's human resources director. In the memo, Leffler said that the attached check from Moore was for "reimbursement of tuition improperly received by Mr. Moore."
Moore contends he did nothing wrong.
"Quite frankly, it was a big misunderstanding," he said.
Others feel differently.
"On this particular issue, my people would have been treated a whole lot differently," said Don Czerniak, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 7, which represents about 900 city employees. "I would think that, as [Mayor] Carty [Finkbeiner] always says, managers should be held to a higher standard. But there appears to be two separate standards - one for union employees and one for administrators.
Moore, 42, joined the city in 1992 as a utility worker earning $7.78 an hour. Previously, he graduated from the former Macomber High School, served three years in the U.S. Navy and was employed as a housekeeper at the former Riverside Hospital.
Over the years, Moore was promoted to light equipment operator to heavy equipment operator to, in 2001, foreman in the city's streets, bridges and harbor division. In 2001, his bid to become alternate superintendent of bridge maintenace was rejected because his superiors said he was not qualified. In 2005, he added the duties of alternate superintendent of street operations, bumping his annual salary from $37,400 to $52,000. Two years later, he was promoted to acting commissioner of sewage and drainage services, a position that was made permanent in August, 2007, and pays him $70,000 annually.
City policy requirements stipulate that a sewage and drainage commissioner hold a bachelor's degree in business or public administration and have five years administrative experience.
Moore met neither of these requirements.
He earned a two-year degree in managerial accounting from Davis College in 1992. As of February, he had accumulated 92 of the 128 hours needed to earn a construction engineering degree from Toledo, where he maintains a 3.9 gradepoint average, according to UT records.
Asked how he made the quantum leap from foreman to commissioner without proper qualifications, Moore said, "I'm not going to comment on that."
When Moore first applied for tuition reimbursement, after returning to school in fall, 2006, he said on his city form that he already had completed 68 hours toward his degree. Asked if he had applied for tuition reimbursement at any other time during his career with the city, Moore said he hadn't. Nothing in his personnel file indicated that that he had. All of the hours he accumulated, he said, were transfered to UT from Davis College.
The city's policy on tuition reimbursement calls for administrators to be working toward a job-related degree. If you take 10 hours or less per term and make all As, you qualify for 100 percent reimbursement of tuition costs along with a full return on the general fee payment.
Moore would have qualified for a full refund each term, except that his wife, Pamela Moore, works as a secretary for the University of Toledo at the health science campus, earning him a fee waiver for all of his UT classes.
In an interview, Pamela Moore said her family has been well aware of the university's fee waiver program for family members. In addition to her husband qualifying for the program, her 23-year-old son, Marvin Parker, utilized tuition fee waivers as a UT student. [Parker served an internship in Mayor Finkbeiner's office this summer, his mother said.]
So the question is: Why did Ed Moore cash three checks for tuition reimbursements from the city knowing he had already received a fee waiver from the university?
Moore said the blame lies elsewhere.
"When I got the [first] check I talked to [Marian Graham] in human resources and said, 'Hey, I don't think I'm supposed to have this.' Her response was, 'You're entitled to the funds.' And, then, afterwards, somehow they decided to look into it and they found that maybe I wasn't supposed to get the funds. So, clearly, it was a mistake on the part of the department of human resources."
In applying for tuition reimbursement, Moore filled out an application prior to each term in which he listed the courses he would be taking. Following completition of the courses he filled out a refund certification form. When he turned in the form directly to Marian Graham, which sources said was an improper procedure, Moore said he included copies of his course results along with an expense sheet, all from UT. It was on the expense sheets that the spouse waiver fees were listed - $2,296.24 on July 7, 2006, $1,987.86 on Nov. 11, 2006, and $2,555.82 on Dec. 9, 2007.
"That package [of forms and documents] is what human resources reviews to determine how much you are entitled to be reimbursed," Moore said. "I never wrote a dollar amount down. I never requested a specific dollar amount. Human resources did all the calculations. They made a mistake. They realized they paid me too much. I paid them back. Bottom line."
Once the issue surfaced, in early May, Finkbeiner asked Deputy Chief Donald Kenney of the police department's investigative services division to look into the matter. Chief Kenney assigned Sgt. Chris Delaney to the case.
In his May 20 report to Chief Kenney, Sergeant Delaney said Moore told Graham and Leffler, the public utilities director, that he thought he had mistakenly received the money. But according to Calvin Brown, the city's manager of benefits, training and workers' compensation, the situation was uncovered not because Moore came forward but because of a catch by an unidentified public utilities department clerk.
"The clerk questioned it because it looked out of the norm," Brown said. "And then we did our due diligence."
Further, Graham told Sergeant Delaney she was clueless about Moore qualifying for a tuition waiver from UT.
"She [said] that Mr. Moore should have indicated in his request that he was anticipating a spouse fee waive. Because he did not list the anticipated waiver, the fact that he recieved a spouse fee waiver was then overlooked [by Graham]," Sergeant Delaney wrote.
Graham did notice a $1,200 grant Moore received from UT on Dec. 28, 2007 and properly deducted it from the amount the city paid Moore for that fall term.
Sergeant Delaney said he reviewed his findings with John Madigan of the city's law department. They agreed there was no basis for criminal prosecution against Moore.
Several sources who are employed by the city and requested anonymity for fear of reprisal said Sergeant Delaney should have dug deeper and talked with more people. For instance, they said Moore's actions regarding tution reimbursement applications were questioned - and criticized - during personal conversations and that Moore acted defiant and smug.
Asked if any city employee broached this subject with him, Moore said, "Never."
Despite being cleared by police, Finkbeiner ordered that Moore serve a five-day suspension without pay.
Moore said he understood.
"I agree with the punishment that the mayor handed down. Maybe I should have scrutinized a little more since I'm a commissioner. I learned a valuable lesson."
Yet after Moore completed his suspension, another controversy surfaced: His worksheet for the week of his suspension, obtained by The Newsmeister.com, was marked AEF, or absent-excused furlough, rather than suspended, as several sources said the worksheet should have noted.
"I have no comment on that," Moore said.
A source familiar with the discrepency on Moore's worksheet, who asked not to be named, had this opinion on the matter: "They didn't want everyone to know. They wanted it covered up. But by the time he got back from his suspension, everyone knew. It didn't matter. I think that's wrong. If you're going to get suspended everyone should know about it."
Czerniak, the union president, concurred.
"We asked questions about it, but it was pretty much stopped right there. They said there was nothing wrong. It was all kept hush," he said.
The mayor and other members of his administration declined to be interviewed for this article.
Moore believes his critics have unfairly judged him.
"This was an unfortunate mistake. No one did anything to defraud anybody," he said.
He suggested there might be a vendetta of sorts against him by some city employees who hope to see him fail.
"[There might be] people within the city who [don't] want to see me excel and do what I want to do."
It's nothing personal, say Moore's critics, who can't get past what they believe was a lucky - and unjustified - escape by the commissioner.
They judge him harshly.
"Guys are upset about it," said one city employee who asked not to be named. "They call him Teflon Ed because he just gets away with stuff. He's a thief. He stole money, and he knew it."
Reported by George J. Tanber georgejtanber@gmail.com
