The Ohio Auditor’s Office says a food vendor’s failure to pay $122,000 in rental fees at the old Franklin County Veterans Memorial went undetected for years.
A state auditreleased Tuesday says Concessions by Cox failed to pay several months’ worth of fees to the old Veterans Memorial between 2011 and 2014, when it closed to make room for a new memorial.
The audit gives equal blame to the vendor and to former Veterans Memorial general manager Rodney Myers.
“Mr. Myers deserves at least half of the blame for this glaring oversight,” Ohio Auditor Dave Yost said in an emailed statement. “His negligent management of this vendor’s activities allowed the memorial to get shortchanged year after year without anyone noticing.”
The audit says Concessions by Cox sent the memorial a check for $121,939 on November 9 after a finding by state auditors. The audits says Myers never paid a personal debt of $40,000 with Concessions by Cox, but the company eventually wrote off the debt.
An unrelated finding in the audit says Myers received more than $5,016 in undeserved severance pay in December 2014 and has yet to repay the memorial.
