Committee offers fix to time clock standoff

FINDLAY — Findlay City Council's Finance Committee made a recommendation Tuesday aimed at ending a bitter time clock dispute among city officials. Tuesday's meeting came after weeks of escalating conflict between Auditor Jim Staschiak and the administration over who controls the city's timekeeping system and whether Service-Safety Director Rob Martin must clock in and out. Council referred the issue to committee earlier this month after dueling letters, union grievances and legal opinions revealed a widening rift inside city hall and raised questions about payroll accuracy, labor-law compliance and the limits of the auditor's authority. The Finance Committee is chaired by Councilman BJ Preston, R-2, and includes councilmen Dan DeArment, R-4; Rodney Phillips, R-6; Dan DeLong, R-7; and L. Reed Needles, R-at-large. What began as a dispute over whether Martin must use ExecuTime widened into a broader fight on Tuesday over who controls how the city tracks hours, leave and pay for its 350-employee workforce. The committee heard testimony from almost every corner of city operations on Tuesday, including the mayor and auditor's office and department heads from police, fire, public works, IT and the municipal court. After nearly two hours of pointed debate over payroll practices and legal authority, the committee recommended ending clock-in requirements for salaried employees while still allowing them to accrue vacation and sick time, and giving the city's human resources office administrative access to the ExecuTime system. Preston said the recommendations are intended to give council a starting point for resolving the dispute, but emphasized that the law director must determine whether the changes are permissible. Staschiak said the state auditor's office has made it clear that overtime-exempt employees must track their time, and that he is personally liable for ensuring payroll is accurate. In a letter to council, dated Feb. 25, Staschiak said the issue is straightforward: Martin continues to accrue vacation and sick leave, but without reliable time records, the auditor's office cannot verify how much he has actually earned. According to Staschiak's letter, if Martin had left the city on Jan. 17, his unused vacation time would have cost taxpayers $7,976, and his sick leave payout could have reached $11,276. On Tuesday, Staschiak said Martin has not recorded any leave since last May and that he can no longer "accept his word" for hours worked. Staschiak said the city's shift to electronic timekeeping has exposed long-standing inconsistencies across departments, including supervisors flexing overtime between weeks, employees being given time they did not work and departments applying rounding rules incorrectly. Deputy Auditor Ginger Sampson described a system strained by decades of manual processes and inconsistent practices. She said some employees had never filled out their own time cards, some supervisors were withholding overtime and others were granting hours without documentation. "We're going to have ourselves a major problem with the Department of Labor if we don't do things right," she told the committee. The administration countered that the auditor's office imposed ExecuTime without collaboration and has restricted access needed to manage day-to-day operations. Human Resource Director Amy Hayslett said her office was shut out of implementation decisions and could not address department-level concerns. Department heads from police, fire, public works, IT, and the municipal court described a system they said was not built for their schedules or workflows. They cited pay errors, training gaps, GPS-based restrictions and incompatibility with 24-hour operations. Their testimony echoed concerns Mayor Christina Muryn raised in earlier correspondence, including her claim that the auditor's approach has created a "culture of gotcha" and eroded internal trust.