MEDINA TOWNSHIP – Trustees read a letter and accepted the resignation of Township Administrator Linda DeHoff at their Feb. 9 regular meeting.

It was confirmed by Trustee Chairman Bill Ostmann Jan. 18 DeHoff submitted her resignation to Township Hall on Jan. 17, after accusations regarding unauthorized payments made by DeHoff were brought up by Fiscal Officer Angela Ventura at the Jan. 12 trustees meeting.

In regard to the allegations, which centered around Ohio Public Employees Retirement System and Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation payments, DeHoff’s letter stated, “I am deeply sorry for the misunderstanding and the handling of the payments of funds.”

The letter, read by Ostmann, goes on to say DeHoff “had Medina Township’s best interest at heart, that being represented by four clean audits and maintaining the township fiscally sound.” She also thanked residents as well as Ostmann and Trustee Ray Jarrett for their support throughout her time serving the township.

Ventura made an inquiry to the prosecutor’s office regarding DeHoff’s actions as township administrator, and Jarrett read the letter received from the prosecutor on the matter.

It read, “The OPERS contributions and the workers’ compensation premiums paid by the administrator appear to be legal obligations of the township. The actions of the administrator reflect a lack of communication but do not in any way, in our view, constitute a violation of law.”

Ventura asked Jarrett to read the rest of the letter. It explains the fiscal officer is responsible for the finances of the township and “Any and all information that comes to the township relevant to that function must be forwarded to the fiscal officer’s attention and no financial transactions should be carried out without the fiscal officer’s authorization.”

To that, Ventura presented trustees with the last four audits from the auditor’s office. She said the audits have findings, meaning they were not 100 percent clean audits.

“Every single audit there were findings, meaning there were problems,” Ventura said. “I don’t want to pick on anyone, because they’re there to make us do better work, so they look for things, but to say that there was a clean bill of health and that her audits always came back (clean), they didn’t.”