Not STRS related, but still a reflection of a failed Buckeye government; Report: Transportation employees failed to keep up rest stops?

Was it lower level employees or does the problem rest with their superiors?

December 28, 2005, Associated Press

CLEVELAND - Ohio Department of Transportation employees ignored problems at nine highway rest areas in northwest Ohio until they were closed because of odors from sewage overflows, an investigation has found.

A transportation department probe found a breakdown in maintenance at rest stops in Allen, Hancock, Paulding, Van Wert and Wyandot counties.

If the employees had inspected the rest stops properly, "motors would not have been without belts for three years, air filters would not have been detached for years, tanks would not have been filled with sludge, and sand filters would not have been plugged and overflowing raw sewage onto public access or private property for years," investigator John Shore wrote.

Shore wrote that he found nine unopened letters from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency on the desk of Todd Newman, 46, a treatment plant coordinator in Lima. Some of the letters, which each cited the department for violations, dated to 2003.

The state EPA has cited the department more than 2,000 times for the facilities, resulting in a $110,400 fine.

Newman, who is paid $43,035 a year, received most of the blame in the report, along with his aide, George Groves, 65, who is paid $34,860.

Newman filled out daily EPA pollution logs without knowing what his entries meant, the report said.

Newman told Shore that he was overworked and that the Lima district's building maintenance superintendent, Theodore "Ted" Kaser, and Marvin Kromer, acting business and human resources administrator, would not free him up to complete all aspects of his job.

Groves said he did everything he was told to do.

Newman and Groves have been on paid leave since Oct. 14, when the rest stops were closed.

The report also places blame on Kaser, 44, and Kromer, 51, who say that Newman trivialized the violations. Kaser is paid $52,686 a year, and Kromer, $77,979.