Auditor will not be penalized for election law violation.
No award from elections commission!
In an attempt to clarify the Dayton Daily News reporting on their article about my opponent’s election law violations in the Friday, October 31, 2014 we offer this.
What is interesting is that the reporter used portions of my comments they left out from my first response, when asked for comment regarding the findings. Here is my first and second complete responses to the reporter requests for comments:
First Response
“It doesn’t surprise me! Karl Keith’s arrogance and lack of knowledge of his responsibility to the taxpayers has carried over to his own campaign. To him, it is about keeping his job and consistently blaming others for his responsibilities, such as IT for the $40M short payment error to Kettering for over two years, revised revisions of Huber Heights assessments, and blaming revaluation results on the company he hired and paid $4.3M. If the taxpayers of Montgomery County are pleased with their 2014 appraisals which I, as a CPA, believe are inaccurate (also confirmed by the likes of Premier Health and University of Dayton) then they should not be concerned about this most recent revelation.”
Second response
“The violations do not surprise me. What the findings did not address is why the violations happened in the first place. Karl Keith’s arrogance and lack of knowledge of his responsibility to the taxpayers extend beyond his campaign finance reporting that he has done for over 14 years as county auditor!”
Dayton Daily’s Version
Instead, the Dayton Daily News continues to allow my opponent criticism that I do not understand what I read in the same newspaper that continues to protect him. I am not sure if that should reflect poorly on the newspaper reporting.
In any case, here are some of the issues that were reported that nobody else understands except for Karl Keith and the media reporting them:
- My opponent, who claims to be a Certified Cash Manager, missed the distribution of $40 million to the City of Kettering for over two years. The extra cash was discovered by the State Auditor.
- As the county data processor and payroll manager he issued payroll checks to employees that bounced at the bank.
- As a self-proclaimed leader and president of the county auditors’ association (a position he held multiple times in his 23 years in office), he should have led the charge to change legislation to avoid the current issues surrounding the Ohio Current Agricultural Use Value (CAUV).
- My opponent spent more than $4.3 million in the recent re-appraisals that the voters are not happy about and yet claims he has improved customer service for property
- My opponent recently revised his reappraisals of the Huber Heights area thereby asking the school board to revise his prior revisions given to them.
- My opponent, considering he is the chief fiscal officer of the county, is not able to properly complete his own campaign finance reports – after 14 years of submissions of the same reports.
- My opponent, instead of prosecuting an employee who embezzled county money, allowed the employee to repay the money back in installments.
Most of the above issues were reported in the Dayton Daily News and yet my opponent claims that I misinterpret what I read in the same paper which failed to report the real issues surrounding this campaign. Instead, the reporting on the election law violations focused on Karl Keith not being penalized or referred for prosecution but that I do not understand what the paper prints. Maybe, the paper should have given Karl Keith another award!
View or download the entire press release here: 10_31_14_DDN -Harry
