Geauga County Commissioner Jim Dvorak expressed disappointment in a lack of communication with County Administrator Gerry Morgan May 16.
Geauga County Commissioner Jim Dvorak expressed disappointment in a lack of communication with County Administrator Gerry Morgan May 16.
Dvorak’s comments came after an executive session during the regular commissioners meeting to discuss the settling of a lawsuit with the Geauga County Board of Elections, and centered on the response to the execution of a federal search warrant May 3 on Department of Water Resources Network Administrator Mike Kurzinger.
Commissioners placed Kurzinger on paid administrative leave May 9.
“Since the events on May 3, I’ve been very disappointed with the communication to the commissioners,” Dvorak said. “Very disappointed. I think that you know, we don’t get the FBI coming in here, any of our county buildings, once a week.”
Referencing the back-and-forth conversations between himself and the county’s information technology team on locking Kurzinger out of the county network, Dvorak said he thinks commissioners should be on the same page with the administrator.
“I think that we should be informed of what HR does, (get) a copy of the letter or even have some input in the situation,” Dvorak said.
Morgan came under fire at a May 11 emergency Automatic Data Processing board meeting. The meeting was called after Kurzinger returned to his office May 10 and made several changes to GCDWR servers, eventually locking employees out of shared file access. (See related story on page __)
Commissioners unanimously voted May 16 to revoke a 5% cost-of-living raise for Kurzinger — pending the outcome of the disciplinary process — after having approved it across-the-board for all employees under their hiring authority May 9. The increase, retroactive to Jan. 1, would be repealed retroactively for Kurzinger.
Commissioners also moved to advertise a newly-created special projects coordinator position to be advertised internally between May 22 and 26 and externally, if no inside candidates are found. The position will start at a base pay of $24.72 per hour.
Dvorak said commissioners have asked Morgan for over three years if he needs help managing projects.
“We’ve been asking for this for at least three and a half years or more,” he said.
Morgan, who was present during the meeting, did respond to Dvorak’s comments.
