Geauga County Commissioners Jim Dvorak and Ralph Spidalieri voted July 25 to place former Geauga County Department of Water Resources Network Administrator Mike Kurzinger on unpaid administrative leave following a grand jury indictment brought against him last week.
Geauga County Commissioners Jim Dvorak and Ralph Spidalieri voted July 25 to place former Geauga County Department of Water Resources Network Administrator Mike Kurzinger on unpaid administrative leave following a grand jury indictment brought against him last week.
Commissioner Tim Lennon was not in attendance.
“Under the Ohio Revised Code, it is for two months,” County Administrator Gerry Morgan said. “We are moving forward with the disciplinary process.”
Kurzinger came into public view in April after the Geauga County Automatic Data Processing board’s information technology staff discovered a GCDWR email server had been attacked by Russian hackers. Less than a month later, a federal search warrant was executed at his office in the county administrative building, as well as in the home and office of Joe Camino, an outside IT vendor for GCDWR.
Commissioners voted May 9 to place Kurzinger on paid administrative leave in the aftermath of the search.
On July 18, Kurzinger was charged with three counts of having an unlawful interest in a public contract, a fourth-degree felony, and three first-degree misdemeanor counts of conflict of interest.
The indictment said Kurzinger, on multiple occasions, “did solicit or accept anything of value that is of such a character as to manifest a substantial and improper influence upon the public official or employee with respect to that person’s duties” — a violation of state law.
The range of time during which Kurzinger allegedly received gifts ranges from May 1, 2008, to April 12, 2022, “in a continuing course of criminal conduct,” the indictment said.
Dvorak asked Morgan what will happen after the 60 days have expired.
“If he is employed after 60 days, we possibly put him back on paid administrative leave,” Morgan said to Dvorak. “The goal is to get through the disciplinary process.”
Dvorak then asked Morgan what happens if Kurzinger wakes up tomorrow morning confessing to all that he is being accused of and would commissioners be legally allowed to fire him.
“I would have to double check, but at that point, yes,” Morgan said.
