Debate over Mayor John Cranley’s proposed permanent tax increase to fund park projects has gotten more contentious as revelations about questionable spending by the Cincinnati Park Board came to light last week.
Private endowments held by the Park Board have been used to pay big bonuses and car allowances to board leaders, according to city documents first reported by The Cincinnati Enquirer.
The revelations come as city voters consider a proposed amendment to the city’s charter that would create a permanent 1 mill city property tax to fund new park projects and provide funding for park upkeep. That amendment, which has proven controversial, would cost the owner of a $100,000 home about $35 a year.
The Park Board gave a $200,000 donation to the political campaign supporting Issue 22 from the endowments, though it later requested and received that money back after questions about the donation’s propriety.
Issue 22 opponents say questions around Park Board spending are reasons to vote against the charter amendment, which would earmark money for park projects chosen by the mayor and the board.
Outspoken amendment opponent Cincinnati attorney Tim Mara called the expenditures a “breech of trust,” saying it created the appearance that Park Board leaders were “living the high life at the public’s expense.”
According to city documents, Park Board Director Willie Carden received a $100,000 bonus in 2011 funneled from privately donated endowments. Similar bonuses paid to Carden and Park Board second-in-command Marijane Klug from Parks Foundation funds in years prior led to an ethics investigation ending in a confidential settlement in which both returned much of the bonus money. Money from those endowments is still being used to pay more than $12,000 a year to Carden and $4,800 a year to Klug in car allowances, according to city documents. In addition, more than $48,000 has been spent on a board credit card Carden has.
The board says all the expenditures were legal and appropriate. However, in the wake of those revelations, Mayor Cranley has called for a freeze on the board’s discretionary spending until an independent audit on the board’s spending practices can be completed.
Cranley has criticized the board’s use of private endowment funds for bonuses and car expenses, though he says voters should still support the parks amendment because funds raised by that amendment will have additional oversight. That claim cuts against a key objection raised by Issue 22 opponents, who say the mayor and Park Board will have the lion’s share of the power of deciding which park projects are funded with money raised by the tax.
This article appears in Oct 28 – Nov 3, 2015.
