Education
Bachelor of Science in Accounting and MBA
Experience
35+ years in financial management and consulting, specializing in technology
Volunteer/Community Service
Board Member, Kenston Community Education (KCE), representing the Kenston School District; Treasurer, Geauga County GOP
My career has been dedicated to professional financial management—not politics. This independence allows me to focus solely on serving taxpayers through these core pillars:
Real Estate: Appraising all county property to ensure fair, market-based valuations and tax assessments.
Fiscal Officer: Serving as a fiscal steward by managing county funds, and overseeing accounts payable and payroll.
Compliance: Preparing the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR), establishing internal controls, and ensuring timely state reporting.
Regulatory Boards: Protecting marketplace fairness on the Budget Commission
Please visit my website and read the section called County Auditor Responsibilities in the Geauga County State Audit Timeliness Report.
My strategy is twofold:
Consulting: I will partner with taxing authorities to analyze borrowing and spending, determining if a levy is truly necessary or if budgets can be optimized first. I will provide models showing how property values affect millage rates, including sensitivity analysis for economic shifts that impact collection rates. Crucially, I will monitor the "cumulative burden" of overlapping taxes to protect your wallet.
Transparency: I will empower taxpayers with the facts. Using clear graphs and standardized metrics, I will translate complex financial data into plain English so you can make informed decisions at the ballot box.
First, I will investigate the historical drivers of high cost growth. For those who remember the Blue Hole in Castalia, there seems to be a similar mystery surrounding the true depths of ADP’s spending.
Second, I will reset priorities to serve county employees and scale back unnecessary county-wide initiatives. We don’t need a camera on every street corner; we need efficient systems that reduce costs and provide greater transparency.
Third, I will inventory all existing contracts to identify which were competitively bid. Sole-source contracts often lead to waste, and taxpayers deserve a fair marketplace.
Finally, I will require a technology strategy that is goal driven. This strategy will serve as the foundation for all future budgets.
Tax reform, including property tax, must assess every element of government, from revenue to spending. We need an orderly, data-driven strategy to rebalance our revenue sources while simultaneously driving government efficiencies that result in lower costs.
To abruptly abolish any tax without a transition plan creates severe disruptions—consequences that taxpayers may not have adequately considered. As a financial professional, I believe we must prioritize stability over volatility.
However, "stability" does not mean accepting the status quo. According to the Tax Foundation, Ohio’s tax burden ranks #39 in the nation—worse than all of our neighboring states. With Indiana ranking #10, it is clear that Ohio, and Geauga County, can do better.
First, I will shift the mindset from spending to smartly repurposing surpluses. Over the past eight years, the county has seen record-breaking revenues, but a large percentage of funds from sales taxes, permits, and fees has been consumed by the County’s General Fund.
Second, I will incentivize county employees to identify genuine waste and move away from the "spend-it-or-lose-it" budget mentality.
Third, I will restore real transparency by releasing financial information in a timely manner with ease of discovery. I challenge you to try to find the 2024 financials or a current PAFR today.
Lastly, I will work with the State of Ohio to improve audit timeliness, moving from a two-year lag to the surrounding county norm of less than one year.
What usually makes the news are unauthorized payments to fictitious vendors. This is a clear breakdown in internal controls, similar to the one that occurred in the county’s ADP department years ago.
Other ways funds are misused include unauthorized overtime, falsified timesheets, asset theft, and creative contracting - the practice of dividing contracts into smaller increments to bypass approval thresholds.
To mitigate these risks, I will conduct a review of policies, procedures, technology and training programs. Furthermore, I will recommend an independent internal controls review and explore using Artificial Intelligence as an early warning system to identify questionable patterns and suspicious vendor addresses.
Education
BME/EE General Motors Institute (Kettering Univ)- Thesis: Downtime Reduction of Numerically Controlled Machine Tools; Post-Grad @ Cleveland State Univ
Experience
8 years-Geauga County Auditor, 5 years-Russell Twp Fiscal Officer, 20 years-Founder/CEO MicroTek Controls, Inc, 6 years-Founder/CFO PrimApe Ltd, 30 years-Founder/CEO CK Properties, Ltd, 10 years-Senior Electrical Engineer General Motors Corp
Volunteer/Community Service
Past Board Member @ Rescue Village, Past Advisory Board Member @ Kent State University Geauga/Twinsburg Regional Campus; Treasurer @ CMC Condominium Assoc
As chief fiscal/payroll officer, real estate assessor, sealer of weights/measures, & administrator of the data processing board, the Auditor maintains county financial records, determines property valuations, administers licensing/tax discounting programs, & distributes tax revenue to local governments & schools. The Auditor is an advocate and check & balance for taxpayers; serving on the Budget Commission and Board of Revision.
I defer to our voters to determine the best person for this role. I hope that I have demonstrated that I will work hard, perform the duties, and be responsible as County Auditor. I take this role seriously and have devoted all necessary time & resources to fulfilling the duties of serving the taxpayers of Geauga.
Since taking office in 2018 I have worked with fellow Budget Commission members to cause nearly $18M of unjustified tax to be returned to Geauga taxpayers. If re-elected, my strategy would be unchanged. I will continue to hold all taxing agencies accountable, ensure that they follow the requirements of Ohio budget law, require them to demonstrate need for tax revenue, deny excessive cash carryover, and only expend taxpayer funds for the levied purpose.
I faithfully follow a defined, structured methodology of review, testing, and analysis on every budget submission and I will continue to work with Geauga taxing agencies to ensure taxpayer money is protected. Every tax budget hearing will continue to be recorded and available for the public.
Protecting all taxpayer funds within the county's infrastructure!
The last 8-years has given me a deeper appreciation for the professionals who serve as first responders. Like police, firefighters, and EMS personnel; IT professionals are underappreciated-until an emergency, cyberattack, or system vulnerability occurs. We rely on expertise, rapid response, and willingness to work long hours under extreme pressures.
Even after a crisis passes, they remain vigilant—monitoring systems, preparing for new threats, and adapting to an ever-changing cyber landscape. This experience has taught me to rely on my strong engineering fundamentals, remain flexible while maintaining structure, and continue learning while working alongside dedicated experts.
I have consistently advocated for Property Tax reform. It is simply too easy to levy new property taxes - we need to raise the bar and requirements to propose a levy. The current system of property valuation is subjective and flawed - we need to overhaul and drastically shrink the system by locking owner-occupied home values at their initial purchase or construction price and changing that value only when sold or modified. We should increase non-owner occupied, commercial, and public utility tax rates, as safety service demands are greater and they are commercial profit centers. We must provide significantly greater tax relief for seniors and veteran homeowners, either by rate-lock freezing their taxes and/or through greater discounting.
Improvement begins with meaningful, substantive property tax reform. We must streamline, downsize, and modernize government to reduce costs. The improvements that I have already made were challenging to design, difficult for some to accept, and require consistent time/attention to see them through - but they were necessary. Factually articulating our local requirements to state legislators is necessary to effect positive change without system upset. Thinking that someone without this knowledge will solve these challenges is naive. After 8-years I have a clear understanding of how the system operates today and what is wrong, this is vital to designing a more efficient, effective “mouse trap” for tomorrow—one that better serves our taxpayers.
I was appointed Auditor in the wake of a 9-year, $1.8M+ embezzlement within the office. I immediately implemented:
1) Strong internal controls – including segregation of duties, redundancy, and clear policies and procedures;
2) Transparency – maintaining public trust and confidence through open records & public input;
3) Proper oversight – through independent audits, system testing, and collaboration with fellow Budget Commission and Board of Revision members;
4) Modern financial systems – leveraging advanced technology, detailed audit trails, and robust cyber protections.
It is essential to expect the unexpected, challenge the status quo, hold all entities accountable, and verify everything-trusting only in God while confirming all else.
