Butler County Controller Ben Holland said Friday he's withholding nearly $41,000 in state money from the county's housing authority because he doesn't know why the agency's executive director and its operations manager are on paid administrative leave.
“When I sign the check, I have either absolute assurance or reasonable assurance that the county dollars that we are paying are being spent appropriately. And according to the law, the minute I have anything less than reasonable assurance, I'm not signing that check,” Holland said.
Housing Authority Solicitor Andrew Menchyk declined to comment, as did county Solicitor Mike English. Holland notified the county of his decision in a letter to English dated Friday.
Perry O'Malley serves as executive director of the county housing and redevelopment authorities, whose boards put him on indefinite leave Jan. 15 from his $128,435-a-year post. They refused to say why he's on leave, or when he would return.
“I think I have every reason to believe that the (authority) board is doing everything in their power to get to the bottom of it, but if they're not giving the county or this office some reasonable assurance, I can't in good conscience release the funds,” Holland said.
His letter states that under the county code, the commissioners can tell the controller to make the payments, and if he refuses, the county court could order him to do so.
Emails from Department of Housing and Urban Development to the housing authority in January stated that O'Malley had spent too much time on outside consulting work and hadn't submitted documentation from the Butler housing authority for a federal program.
Authority officials won't say if that's related to O'Malley's leave.
Holland said he does not have any evidence of financial wrongdoing, so he cannot justify spending “tens of thousands of dollars” on a forensic audit.
Holland noted that authority Comptroller David Schnur resigned Jan. 8.
“At this point, it's just best to close the purse strings and see what happens,” Holland said.
The county received just under $400,000 in state money in 2014 that it passed on to the housing authority for affordable housing projects, according to Holland's letter.
The money Holland is withholding includes payments to local contractors for rehab work in homes owned by low-income residents who qualified for government programs.
On Feb. 20, the housing and redevelopment authority placed operations manager Sandy Reges on paid administrative leave through March 6, but gave no explanation.
O'Malley selected Reges in December to become his deputy executive director for housing, contingent on state Civil Service approval. On Feb. 6, the housing board eliminated the deputy director's position and said Reges would remain operations manager.
Bill Vidonic is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-380-5621 or bvidonic@tribweb.com.
