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Ohio was dealt a big blow with Bradley's defeat...

Controversial record dogs GOP treasurer hopeful

 

Sunday, June 25, 2006

 

Aaron Marshall

 

Plain Dealer Reporter

 

Weeks before Ashtabula County Auditor Sandra O'Brien pulled off a historic upset in the race for the Republican slot for state treasurer, a short letter arrived at her office.

 

Sent by nearly a dozen Ashtabula County elected officials, the bipartisan group's letter questioned why contributions made to the state Public Employees Retirement System handled by O'Brien's office had been miscalculated and "consequently will have a substantial impact on retirement benefits available to us."

 

The problem was that O'Brien's office underreported to PERS in 2004 the amount that officeholders made, according to Ashtabula County Sheriff William Johnson, who has met with PERS officials on the matter. That is important because a person's highest three years of salary are used to determined the pension.

 

While O'Brien insisted Friday that everything was reported properly to PERS, the letter states that "PERS has told us the problem with the contributions and correct accounting lies with your office."

 

Said Johnson: "She wants to just pass it off and say we don't understand what is going on, but it's definitely wrong."

 

As the little-known O'Brien begins her underdog general election run for state treasurer, the recent letter underscores troubling lapses that have surfaced from her 12-year tenure as auditor in Ohio's far northeastern county.

 

The most serious questions about O'Brien's record arise from state audit findings spread over several years, including a 2003 finding that a lack of safeguards in O'Brien's office led to the embezzlement of $40,000.

 

Couple those findings with a series of costly court disputes with local officials, and a picture emerges of an auditor with a penchant for controversy a picture at odds with her pleasant demeanor.

 

With $11 billion in state assets riding on the state treasurer's job, O'Brien detractors question her fitness for office while O'Brien and her supporters shrug off the disputes as partisan politics and see her as a fierce watchdog of public money.

 

O'Brien is used to being taken lightly in politics. It happened in her first race for county auditor in 1994, when she knocked off a 24-year incumbent "who never saw it coming," as O'Brien puts it. It happened again this May, when O'Brien toppled state treasurer Jennette Bradley in the GOP primary.

 

Running an insurgent "pro-family," social-issues campaign against the moderate Bradley, the 54-year-old O'Brien hitched her wagon to conservative Republican gubernatorial nominee Ken Blackwell.

 

"They clearly said we want some new faces and we'd like the farm team here," said O'Brien about her win over Bradley, Gov. Bob Taft's running mate in 2002, who became the first person in 50 years to go from winning the office of lieutenant governor to losing in the next election's primary.

 

Next up is her Democratic opponent in November, Franklin County Treasurer Rich Cordray, who has $1.2 million in the bank while O'Brien has only a few thousand.

 

 

"I think Sandy is getting her fund raising off the ground and starting to bring in some money," said Ohio Republican Party Chief Bob Bennett. She will largely fend for herself, as the GOP faces challenges for U.S. Senate, governor and two other statewide seats.

 

Said Bennett: "I think it's way too early for Rich Cordray to be measuring for the drapes in his new office."

 

O'Brien will be outspent, but she may not be outworked.

 

"She's maybe the hardest campaigning person that I've ever seen," said Ashtabula County Republican Party Chairman Richard Hornstein.

 

While no one doubts O'Brien's trail tenacity, questions are gathering like summer storm clouds about her time as auditor as she campaigns for control of a state treasury laden with $11 billion in assets and $160 billion in the state's retirement systems and other state funds.

 

The strongest evidence of O'Brien's troubles in office come from findings detailed in state audits by Republican state Auditor Betty Montgomery.

 

A 2003 year-end audit said that a lack of internal controls allowed an O'Brien employee to embezzle $40,000 over two years.

 

"If policies and procedures had been developed and followed . . . this theft might have been prevented or discovered in a timelier manner," the audit said.

 

Springing to her defense, O'Brien said that the money was fully recovered and that the theft was discovered because of a special audit she performed. "I was the one who caught it and got the confession and took it to the prosecutor."

 

However, a September 2003 Ashtabula County Sheriff's Department report shows that two employees brought the theft to O'Brien's attention, sparking the internal audit.

 

O'Brien said her internal audit "was sort of concurrent." Asked if policies were changed, O'Brien said, "We just tightened up what we were already doing."

 

Other findings from recent state audits include the improper purchase of a Ford Explorer in 2003 for her office and the 2004 overpayment by $1,500 of O'Brien's own salary.

 

O'Brien's record also reflects a series of run-ins with county officials-primarily Democrats - over local projects.

 

One flash point: A 160,000-square-foot lodge and conference center opposed by O'Brien but approved by the Democratic county commissioners.

 

When the lodge project went forward in late 2003 and early 2004, O'Brien took months to pay bills, earning a rebuke from Montgomery's office that noted she was "without the discretion" to refuse "merely because she doesn't like a particular project."

 

O'Brien sees the lodge dispute - and other instances where she has butted heads with local officials - as a badge of honor demonstrating her independent stance and close eye on the public till.

 

"If I see a compliance issue that I believe isn't proper, I'm going to take it to a higher authority," O'Brien said.

 

"In the long run, it works out because the public knows that what you're doing is right, and you're facing the big special interests who may not like the exposure."

 

Other legal flaps include a dispute over a job-training program, suing for outside counsel instead of using the county prosecutor to represent her, refusing to pay a $5,000 appraisal bill as well as refusing to do an appraisal on a campground.

 

The lawsuits, almost all of which O'Brien lost, have cost more than $100,000, by the count of County Commissioner Bob Boggs, a Democrat and political enemy of O'Brien's. He sees the disputes as calculated.

 

"She works with the conspiratorial theory that everybody else in county government is bad and she's a good person and can't get anything done because we're against her," said Boggs.

 

"She doesn't know her job, and she doesn't follow Ohio law."

 

O'Brien counters that some of the legal costs were rung up because the county prosecutor refused to represent her in battles against the commissioners.

 

She said those who view her as a roadblock are playing partisan games and noted that she found improperly spent money in a local veterans agency that resulted in a conviction.

 

"I was elected Republican in a Democratic county. The opposite party has come at me every time I'm up for re-election," she said. "The voters know when you're standing up for them and not special interests, and that's why they keep you in office."

 

County party chief Hornstein helped recruit O'Brien for the county auditor spot and has watched her battle.

 

"She is controversial," Hornstein said. But "I think she would be a good treasurer because she's a very honest person and has watched every penny."

 

Added Hornstein, in a sentiment that his Democratic counterparts might echo: "She's not the go-along-and-get-along kind of type."

 

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

 

[email protected], 1-800-228-8272

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