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Marion’s financial collapse did not begin with a theft, a misconfiguration, or a missing audit trail. It began with a story. It was a story told differently depending on the audience, crafted to justify a purchase that had already been politically decided, and it collapsed the moment the public record was examined.
For 40 years, the City of Marion operated with missing, disabled, or misconfigured financial and IT controls. The earliest Ohio Auditor of State audits in Marion Watch’s possession show that basic safeguards were never implemented, never maintained, and never enforced. By the time the city purchased New World Systems in 2009, the collapse was already decades in motion. The software purchase did not fix the problem.
It amplified it.
Silent Sabotage documents how the city sold two
contradictory narratives, one to Council and one to the public, to push through a $750,000 emergency procurement that was neither necessary nor supported by the record.
The Legislative Record: What the City Actually Had
On May 12, 2008, the City Council passed Ordinance 2008‑35 authorizing the purchase and installation of a new system server in Municipal Court, and Ordinance 2008‑36 authorizing the purchase and installation of a case management system upgrade. These ordinances confirm that the city had active, funded, functioning software and server infrastructure. The record shows the city was actively upgrading technology, not operating on paper and pencil.
The Two Sales Pitches: One Story for Council, Another for the Public
Silent Sabotage shows that the administration used two different narratives to justify the New World Systems purchase. Inside City Hall, the pitch claimed the city had no modern software, departments were struggling, staff were working on paper and pencil, modernization was overdue, and New World would bring efficiency and transparency. This pitch was designed to appeal to Council members who wanted modernization and efficiency.
It framed New World as a long overdue upgrade.
The public, however, was sold a completely different story. Ordinance 2008‑102 and public‑facing statements claimed the city’s existing software would cease to be operational on January 1, 2010, support would expire by the end of the year, the city faced an imminent shutdown, a 3‑day vendor discount window required immediate action, and emergency procurement was necessary to prevent collapse.
This pitch was designed to create urgency and justify bypassing competitive bidding.
During the October 27, 2008 meeting, Mayor Schertzer delivered a pep‑talk style endorsement of the purchase, stating that it was “high time that we do it” and that the administration did not take the decision lightly. He framed the purchase as inevitable and overdue, even though the record shows the city had just purchased new software and hardware months earlier.
Council was told the city was stuck in the dark ages. The public was told the city’s software was about to expire. Both cannot be true. The legislative record proves neither was true.
The Manufactured Emergency
Ordinance 2008‑102 declared an emergency based on an unsupported claim of software expiration, a 3‑day vendor discount window, a promise of increased controls, and a claim that New World would prevent theft. No vendor documentation has ever been found to support the January 1, 2010 expiration date. The emergency procurement narrative was constructed, not factual, and was used to bypass competitive bidding and commit the city to a $750,000 enterprise software purchase under Ordinance 2009‑39.
This false narrative is the origin point of the next 17 years of failures, and it is where Marion’s 40‑year history of poor IT and financial controls began to unravel, ultimately landing Marion in fiscal emergency in 2026.
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The System That Was Never Configured
Silent Sabotage documents that New World Systems was installed, paid for, financed, maintained, and upgraded, but never configured. Records show no initial configuration documentation, no module activation records, no security configuration records, no workflow configuration records, no audit trail configuration records, and no permission configuration records.
Mayor Bill Collins stated that 80 percent of the modules were not used and appeared never to have been used. Internal records, screenshots, and interviews with current and former city employees and officials confirm that the reconciliation module was never activated, the General Ledger override was misconfigured from installation, permissions were inappropriate, passwords were shared, and safety controls were disabled or never activated.
The city purchased a control system and left its safety features disabled.
The Culture of Workarounds
Silent Sabotage documents that Marion developed a culture where manual workarounds were normal. Staff fixed problems manually, reconciled manually, adjusted manually, overrode manually, tracked financial data manually, and corrected errors manually. This culture was not incidental. It was institutional. It was documented in council summaries, internal records, Auditor of State audits, by contractors, the Silent Sabotage series, and eventually the Ohio Auditor of State.
Industry doctrine confirms that manual workarounds undermine system integrity. NIST states that deficiencies remain operative until corrected. GAO states that deficiencies accumulate into systemic weaknesses. Marion’s culture ensured that deficiencies remained operative and that system controls were bypassed in practice.
Decades of Audits: A Paper Trail of Misconfigurations
The Ohio Auditor of State’s 2010 audit, the first full year under New World, documented more than 20 findings and confirmed that the city’s financial control environment had collapsed. The audit identified disabled audit trails, unrestricted override capabilities, missing reconciliations, missing documentation, missing training, missing configuration records, manual adjustments, and failure to enforce budgetary controls.
From 2011 through 2019, state audits repeatedly cited unresolved reconciliation issues, weak access controls, missing documentation, and continued reliance on manual workarounds instead of properly configured software.
By 2020, the Auditor of State found that Marion’s books were off by $314,347, explicitly noting that the city had failed to perform monthly bank‑to‑book reconciliations and pointing to the “complexity of the city’s accounting software” as a main contributing factor.
The 2021 audit was even worse.
The unreconciled variance grew to $543,079, and auditors again cited missing reconciliations and software complexity. At the same time, broad permissions to override budgets remained available to non‑auditor staff, and the Ohio Auditor of State finally ordered it fixed immediately.
These findings confirmed that the General Ledger override misconfiguration and the disabled reconciliation controls were not short‑term glitches. They were long‑standing, systemic failures.
The External Forensic IT Evidence
External forensic IT observations by Marion Watch and our network of information technology and financial professionals, including individuals with dual skillsets in both fields, confirmed failures that the audit did not detect. Evidence and interviews with city employees and past and present officials, public records, screenshots, and other data proved that passwords were shared, user permissions were inappropriate, and segregation of duties was missing.
These failures were not isolated. They were long‑standing, systemic conditions that matched the pattern documented in the earliest audits available to Marion Watch.
Together, the audit findings and the external forensic IT evidence show that Marion operated with disabled safety controls, misconfigured financial modules, and an access control environment that had collapsed.
The failures were visible, predictable, and preventable.
The Veritas Contract: The Failure No One Expected
Eventually, the city hired Veritas to perform forensic financial work as part of Marion’s attempt to understand the growing discrepancies in its books. Veritas immediately detected corrupt data, missing modules, missing configurations, and serious structural failures inside the New World system. According to Veritas, the system was so corrupted that they could not make sense of the financial environment.
Veritas also reported that they were blocked from looking back before 2019 and 2020. They were walled off from the years where the failures originated. Without access to the historical data, Veritas could not reconstruct the financial environment or determine how far back the corruption extended, which is what needed to be done according to both IT and financial standards.
The situation was so compromised that Veritas terminated the contract. They informed the city that the system was too corrupted to repair and too restricted to investigate. This termination was unprecedented and confirmed that Marion’s financial system had collapsed beyond the point of solely financial forensic reconstruction, and is why Marion Watch, many officials, citizens, and IT / financial professionals are now demanding a full forensic IT audit, which is non-negotiable due to the severity of the issues in Marion.
The 2015 Utility Billing Theft
A former utility supervisor misappropriated nearly $30,000 from the city’s utility department. The theft went unnoticed by the system and was only caught later by the Ohio Auditor of State. Because the New World safety controls and Reconciliation modules were disabled, the system was blind to the missing funds. Even after the theft was discovered, the city continued using the exact same broken, manual processes for years. This is the only theft on record post‑New World, and the New World system failed to detect it despite the promises of the former Schertzer administration that it would.
Why the Auditor of State Did Not Catch Failure of IT Controls
The Auditor of State does not perform forensic IT audits. Auditors test financial outputs and rely on management’s descriptions. They do not verify configuration, module activation, permissions, audit trails, or override settings. Federal doctrine explicitly allows state auditors to rely on management representations. According to current and former officials and employees, Marion repeatedly misrepresented its IT environment. The State passed them without realizing the digital vault doors were left wide open.
The Systemic Failure Model
Silent Sabotage shows that Marion failed to implement, failed to configure, failed to train, failed to document, failed to secure, failed to reconcile, failed to audit, failed to correct, and failed to govern. These failures were interconnected. Configuration failures caused reconciliation failures. Reconciliation failures caused documentation failures. Documentation failures caused audit failures. Audit failures caused oversight failures. Oversight failures caused governance failures. Marion’s pattern matches federal doctrine for systemic collapse.
The City’s Own Admissions
Staff admitted modules were not used. Administrators admitted modules were not configured. Council members admitted reconciliations were not performed. Mayors admitted modules were not activated. Auditors admitted controls were not implemented. Staff admitted passwords were shared. Staff admitted permissions were inappropriate. Staff admitted audit trails were not enabled. Staff admitted the system was never configured. These are not allegations. They are the city’s own statements.
Conclusion
Silent Sabotage series shows that the emergency ordinance for New World Systems was not justified.
The city had functioning software in 2008. It was still purchasing upgrades. Vendor lifecycle practices do not support the idea of an abrupt shutdown on January 1, 2010. No vendor documentation has been located that shows such a shutdown. Furthermore, multiple city employees, former and current offials have advised that the system was highly contested, largely based on the reputation of the software, cost, lack of justification, and rush of implimentation.
Silent Sabotage shows that the city did not implement the controls it purchased.
The Ohio Auditor of State issued more than 20 findings in 2010, and the problems continued for more than a decade. The General Ledger override misconfiguration undermined the entire financial control structure. The reconciliation module was never activated. Audit trails were disabled. Permissions were inappropriate. Administrative accounts were shared. Segregation of duties was not enforced.
The 2015 utility billing theft was made possible by the city’s refusal to activate the software safety controls, modules, and its reliance on manual processes.
The 2020 and 2021 audits quantified the damage in hundreds of thousands of unreconciled dollars and tied it directly to misconfigured software and missing reconciliations.
The Veritas termination confirmed that the system was so corrupted and so restricted that forensic reconstruction was impossible. Marion’s financial system had collapsed beyond repair.
Taken together, these facts show that the emergency declaration was not justified and that the promised controls were never realized. The city’s own documents, the Auditor of State findings, the General Ledger misconfiguration, the unused reconciliation module, the inappropriate permissions, the shared passwords, the 2015 theft, the repeated audit warnings, the cultural normalization of workarounds, the systemic failure model, the Veritas termination, and the Silent Sabotage investigation all contradict the narrative used to support the New World Systems purchase.
Marion did not suffer a hidden failure.
It suffered a documented failure.
A predictable failure. A preventable failure.
A systemic failure.
And a failure that persisted because the city never corrected the underlying causes and never implemented the controls it purchased.
