Official Marion City Council minutes, explicitly cross-referenced with the extensive “Silent Sabotage” investigative archive, reveal a chilling reality: the fiscal chaos at the end of the Schertzer administration was not a sudden accident of incompetence. It was the climax of a 40-year erosion of financial and IT controls, engineered and weaponized during the final hours of the Schertzer reign to intentionally cripple the incoming administration of Mayor Bill Collins.

Jason Schaber’s legislative tenure, specifically his leadership on the Finance Committee, is defined by a refusal to heed expert warnings. Instead, the public record shows a pattern of pushing through record-breaking debt, authorizing what many are calling cover-up transfers, and actively dismantling legislative IT oversight exactly when “hidden software loopholes” were being exploited by administration insiders.

The key takeaway from the data is undeniable: the Collins administration was intentionally sabotaged. Here is the comprehensive, documented breakdown of how a city’s financial infrastructure was systematically weaponized, from the immediate trap set in the administration’s final hours tracing back to the original sins of the digital blind spot.

We would like to thank current and previous officials for taking the time to speak with us regarding this very important matter. Marion Watch’s understanding of the financial and IT issues that have plagued Marion for decades is echoed by current and many past administrations as being “scary accurate”. This includes predictions made about the IT control failures made before any action was taken to correct things like the GL Override in the New World software which allowed millions in illegal spending over the entirety of the time the software has been installed.

Accountability on the Ballot: Bayles-Schaber Dispute, The Forgotten $3.5 Million Project, and the Hidden Debt that Reshaped Marion

The current political landscape in Marion County has reached a point of significant friction following the broadcast of the recent Candidates Night forum for the 2026 Commissioner race. This tension, culminated in a public exchange between candidate Jason Schaber and Sheriff Matt Bayles regarding the historical handling of the city’s 2011–2012 fiscal crisis. Sheriff Bayles initiated the public discourse with a social media post stating he was “disturbed greatly” by Schaber’s forum remarks, which he felt suggested the police department refused to provide concessions during the financial emergency. Bayles pointedly argued that members of the department, including former Chief Tom […]

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Part I: The $4 Million Trap & 2023 Lame-Duck Spending

While the broader historical damages—including a past $3.5 million aquatic center override and a massive $2.5 million “black hole” cross-fund discrepancy—total over $8.4 million, it was the 2023 lame-duck session that actively manufactured a $4 million operational trap designed specifically for Mayor Collins.

In November 2025, Mayor Bill Collins was forced to mandate strict 10 percent budget cuts across city departments, implement hiring freezes, and delay critical projects to address a projected $4 million deficit left behind by the Schertzer administration. Here is exactly how that hole was dug.

The Lame-Duck Debt Bomb

During the final year of the Schertzer administration, spending aggressively accelerated. Schaber and the council authorized massive debt obligations structured so the payments would completely bypass the outgoing administration and fall squarely onto the incoming Collins budget:

• The $1.6 Million Fire Truck Financed for a Decade: Ordinance 2023-021 authorized the purchase of a 2025 Spartan/Smeal Fire Truck. The administration financed 100% of this cost over 10 years at a 4.99% APR, deliberately structuring the lease agreement to delay the very first payment until August 2024.
• The $425K Ambulance “Stop-Gap”: The administration pushed Ordinance 2023-068 for an emergency medical vehicle. While initially lower, Jason Schaber officially amended the ordinance on the floor, increasing the cost to $425,000. He also amended the ordinance to remove the use of capital and general funds, shifting the financial burden directly onto collected property tax funds before it was adopted 9-0.
• Unbudgeted Police Fleet: The administration pushed through the authorization of four fully equipped 2025 police vehicles during a recognized period of financial instability.

The Lame-Duck Lock-In: Police and Fire Union Contracts

Internal communications verify that the outgoing administration did not properly negotiate, but rather authorized, massive union contracts payable entirely by the incoming Collins administration.

• The Police (FOP) Contract Increases: Contracts for the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP-OLC Blue Unit and Gold Unit) were added directly to the legislative agenda by Mayor Scott Schertzer and passed as emergency measures on October 23, 2023. Executed just weeks before the election, the first-year cost alone was verified by the Auditor to be $650,000. Internal documentation confirms this legally locked the city into steep 18% pay increases extending from 2024 to 2026.
• The Fire (IAFF) Contract Increases: Ordinance 2023-015, ratifying the bargaining agreement with the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) Local 379, was officially introduced by Mayor Schertzer and passed on March 13, 2023.

The Compound Effect: Insurance and Benefit Spikes

Subsequent internal analyses accurately identify the compounding fiscal damage, noting: “Because of the increase in wages the benefit package also increased… This was not a Collins thing it was a Schertzer thing,” stated by several in the current administration and citizens.

In public sector finance, base wages dictate mandatory employer pension contributions. By authorizing an 18% wage increase for police and substantial increases for fire during the lame-duck period, the Schertzer administration automatically triggered a proportionate, massive increase in the city’s required benefit payouts.

Internal records confirm a resulting 13% insurance spike, which perfectly aligns with the late-2023 financial cover-ups. Just weeks before leaving office, the Schertzer administration introduced Ordinances 2023-083 to desperately cover a $120,000 shortage on insurance, alongside 2023-084 and 2023-085 to aggressively cover unexpected, massive shortages in employee wages and benefits that had been draining the general fund. The outgoing Schertzer administration reaped the political capital of giving out 18% raises, while ensuring Mayor Collins would be forced to foot the bill.

THE MAGIC BOX PART I: Painting Over the Past and the Cold Shadows of Silent Sabotage

 As the first installment in “The Magic Box” series—an ongoing investigation into the myriad “side explosions” of mismanagement and unchecked authority under the former Schertzer administration—a disturbing pattern of alleged protocol violations and unilateral decision-making has emerged surrounding former Service Director Cathy Chaffin, senior administration, and council. To fully grasp how these localized failures occurred, they must be viewed through the lens of the broader “Silent Sabotage” investigation. As Marion Watch Investigates has previously documented, “Silent Sabotage” exposed a decades-long systemic failure in the city’s financial and IT controls. This included intentional software misconfigurations, disabled safety measures, shared credentials, and […]

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The Direct Cost of the Digital Blind Spot (Penalties & Cover-Ups)

Because insiders Cathy Chaffin and Kelly Carr withheld the correct New World software workflows, and IT or others disabled Magic Writer audit trails, the city mathematically failed its audits, resulting in massive fines that drained the general fund:

• 2020 IRS Penalties: $196,972.39. (Resulting from the city ignoring an initial July 2020 IRS letter and failing to file proper paperwork).
• 2022/2023 IRS Penalties: $70,083.62.
• FOP Pension Penalty: $5,941.92. (Resulting from ignored invoices and overdue emails).
• Consultant Fees: $128,450.00. (Taxpayer dollars hemorrhaged to Veritas Solutions Group to fix the engineered reconciliation crisis).
• Vorys Legal Fees: $35,000.00. (Spent fighting the IRS penalties, including an additional $20,000 requested under Ordinance 2023-087).

Unchecked Departmental Overspending

As revealed in the 2021 audit and the November 2023 “Negative Line Items” crisis, department heads were permitted to spend millions beyond their legal appropriations because the “GL Override” (Budgetary Hard Stop) was intentionally disabled. In a single audited year, the General Fund was allowed to transfer out $1,150,886 over its legal budget, the Fire Fund overspent by $625,738, and the Police Fund overspent by $567,688—all without the software stopping the checks from printing.

Part II: Cover-Up Transfers and the Execution of Oversight

What elevates these expenditures from gross mismanagement to calculated sabotage is Jason Schaber and the administration’s active use of legislative maneuvers to destroy oversight and attempt to transfer funds to cover up massive systemic failures just weeks before leaving office.

• Dissolving the “Ghost Committee” (March-April 2023): Right as whistleblower testimony emerged regarding Chaffin’s unauthorized spending and ghost access, Jason Schaber pushed Ordinance 2023-017 to officially dissolve the Information Systems Committee of Council entirely. This effectively destroyed the legislative body tasked with IT scrutiny precisely when the New World software loopholes were most active and the Ohio Auditor of State was beginning to respond to the systemic failures. It passed 9-0.

• Attempted Transfer to Cover Penalties (Ordinance 2023-069): In November 2023, the administration introduced Ordinance 2023-069 to explicitly authorize the transfer of funds within the General Fund to increase the “penalty and interest line item”. This was a direct attempt to quietly cover up a $5,941.92 penalty owed to the Ohio Police and Fire Pension Fund because Auditor Meginness’s office had ignored emails and calls since 2021. The council ultimately defeated the cover-up maneuver in a 1-8 vote.

• Covering Up Unauthorized Spending (Ordinances 2023-083, 2023-084, 2023-085): On November 27, 2023, emergency appropriation ordinances were introduced to cover up severe account shortages before the transition of power. Councilman Rollins revealed there were “over 20 negative line items,” proving that department heads were permitted to freely spend beyond their authorized budgets for the entire fiscal year without any financial controls stopping them.

• The $2.5 Million Black Hole & Continued Vulnerability: Ordinance 2023-086 officially exposed the massive $196,972.39 and $70,083.62 IRS penalties to the public record. These penalties were the direct mathematical result of weaponized software and the intentional concealment of reconciliation workflows. Furthermore, this cultivated blindness culminated in a staggering $2.5 million cross-fund discrepancy identified by Veritas—a literal financial black hole that left the incoming Collins administration entirely blind to the city’s actual cash reserves.

Part III: The Anatomy of the Digital Blind Spot (2009–2019)

To understand how the Schertzer administration could orchestrate a $4 million trap in plain sight, one must look backward. An expansion of the timeline from 2009 forward reveals that the financial collapse of the 2020s was not an isolated crisis, but the inevitable detonation of a fiscal time bomb planted over a decade earlier.

The “Original Sin” of the New World Implementation

The root of the city’s modern financial blindness traces directly back to 2009, during the height of the Great Recession. The city purchased the million-dollar New World ERP financial software system, cited as a emeregency measure. However, instead of utilizing it as an integrated, secure accounting platform, the system was intentionally misconfigured.

This misconfiguration created a “hidden software loophole” that fueled 16+ years of fiscal chaos. By fracturing the reporting modules and disabling standard audit trails—like those in the secondary ACH system, Magic Writer—insiders ensured that the true state of the city’s finances could be hidden, manipulated, or obscured from both the elected Auditor and the City Council. This singular event in 2009 birthed the digital blind spot that defined the “Silent Sabotage”.

The Fiscal Crisis, The Aquatic Center Override, & Unilateral Transfers

While the city’s software was actively masking financial realities, the City Council utilized claims of poverty to push through highly suspicious, politically motivated capital projects at the expense of essential personnel. During a severe 2011 fiscal crisis where the city claimed a million-dollar deficit, the police union offered a $220,000 concession package intended to save 16 critical law enforcement positions. The administration and council rejected this lifeline.

Just two months after rejecting the police union’s concessions to “save money,” Jason Schaber and a 7-2 council majority voted to override a mayoral veto to force through $3.5 million in spending for the Marion Aquatic Center. Schaber defended his budget votes as necessary “tough leadership” due to the deficit, yet the official record shows a clear willingness to drain millions for a recreational capital project while simultaneously claiming the city was too broke to maintain its police force.

This unilateral mismanagement extended to the city’s cash reserves. The administration unilaterally transferred $500,000 to a low-interest Union Bank account, bypassing standard investment protocols and bleeding the city of thousands of dollars in lost yield.

The Era of the “Ghost Committee” and Ignored Warnings

Throughout the decade following the New World implementation, the legislative oversight required to catch the financial subversion was deliberately hollowed out. For nearly 20 years, the Information Systems Committee of Council operated as a “Ghost Committee”. Despite the very obvious, and widely known growing disaster within the city’s IT and financial software infrastructure, this committee completely failed to investigate, audit, or correct the vulnerabilities. When the full scope of the IT collapse eventually came to light, leadership claimed ignorance—an impossible defense given the continuous operation of this “Sham Committee”.

The administration cannot claim they were unaware of the impending disaster. As early as 2019, Marion Watch Investigates compiled an Internal Check Sheet and published articles detailing severe, systemic issues regarding the city’s finances, IT vulnerabilities, and political games. Despite these early warnings—”The Inconvenient Receipts”—city leadership took no corrective action. The deliberate choice to ignore these documented 2019 findings proves that the subsequent 2022/2023 financial collapse was permitted to happen.

The Vindication of Robert Landon vs. The Insiders

As the crisis deepened, the city continuously pushed through emergency appropriations to cover Vorys legal fees for appealing massive IRS penalties. The Schertzer administration publicly scapegoated former Auditor Robert Landon for these failures. However, investigative findings fully vindicate Landon, along with his admittance he could have caught the issues sooner, records and eye witness accounts revealed he was actively attempting to reconcile the books but was deliberately boxed out. Insiders Cathy Chaffin and Kelly Carr exclusively controlled and hoarded the “preferred” New World reconciliation workflows, creating an impossible situation for anyone else attempting to balance the accounts.

Veteran IT specialist Ralph Smith publicly warned the council that this specific type of infrastructure failure resulted in a complete loss of control over municipal finances.

Council members also raised alarms over the years. Yet, despite past warnings, and despite lacking a completed audit, the administration pushed through Ordinance 2022-030 to create a new, highly paid “Tax Investigator/Administrator” position. Councilman Neff pointed out that this new salary would exceed the elected Auditor’s statutory pay. The ordinance was forced through on a 5-4 vote, inflating the payroll while the city’s basic financial health remained completely obscured.

When combining the $1.98 million in lame-duck vehicle debt, the nearly $436,000 in penalties and consultant cover-up fees, and the millions in unchecked, illegal departmental overspending allowed by the disabled “GL Override,” it aligns squarely with the projected $4 million deficit the Collins administration was forced to absorb and mitigate with 10% budget cuts.