IRBust - Part 2

WAR WHOOP TO FIRE FINANCE DIRECTOR SCHLESS

At Tuesday night’s meeting, Commission Valery made a motion to fire Marty Schless from his position as IRB Finance Director. The motion was seconded by Commissioner Wollin, but ultimately did not get enough votes to carry the day. The commission has been criticized from every angle for not cutting Schless loose.

There are at least two problems with giving Marty the heave-ho—at least RIGHT NOW. First, the termination motion, made and seconded by Valery and Wollin last Tuesday, did not follow proper procedure. The motion was made at the very end of the commission meeting, under “Commissioner Comments”—where motions of this nature are NOT permitted. Was this lynching “reserved” until the end of the meeting, and not added as an agenda item, in hopes that most of the public would have already exited the auditorium, offering no opportunity for citizen feedback?

Fortunately, some of the last mohicans in the audience were two former mayors who both pointed out the procedural defect in the Valery/Wollin motion, telling the group that a charter officer’s firing must be an agenda-ed item in order to fly.

Secondly, why would anyone interested in finding out what really happened give even one minute’s thought to firing the only guy who knows where the bodies are buried? Like him or not, Schless can shed enough light on this matter so that the hard questions can be asked and sufficiently answered. Is attempting to fire Marty a means of keeping a lid on the who/what/where/why/when of how nearly a million dollars in unauthorized loans made their way from our pot of general operating tax dollars into two enterprise funds that should--by their nature--be self-supporting? Is it easier to avoid setting the record straight if Marty isn’t around?

Obviously, someone had enough confidence in Marty Schless to hire him as our CFO in the not-so-distant past, so why the change of heart now? Complaints of his lack of governmental accounting experience have been voiced. That was a known fact when Schless was hired, so why take issue with that now?

“He should have known” is about the best reason anyone has come up with so far for firing him. Many of us would actually like to hear what Marty—himself—has to say. But, will we be given that opportunity? Judging by the increasing volume of the war cries to terminate him, probably not. And when he cleans out his desk, he takes with him essential information in determining how IRB got into this precarious financial position in the first place and what steps must be taken so we never find ourselves here again.