Ethics panel slams official
A former public official in Butler County violated ethics rules, a state commission found, but the dollar amount he must pay as penance is vastly smaller than the settlement he earned after his firing from two public agencies.
Pennsylvania’s State Ethics Commission decided on June 27 that Perry O’Malley violated ethics rules when he neglected his duties, enjoyed publicly-funded extended travel, used vehicles for personal reasons, and failed to report earned income while employed as executive director at the Butler County Housing Authority and the Redevelopment Authority of Butler County.
As part of its findings, which became public Wednesday, the commission demands that O’Malley pay $16,131. That sum is split among the housing authority, the ethics commission itself and the state of Pennsylvania. The authority is to get the biggest share, with $12,380 owed.
That total is far short of the $325,000 settlement paid to O’Malley after he claimed the housing authority fired him due to age discrimination.
Andrew Menchyk, the solicitor that represented the two entities in legal proceedings with O’Malley, said the decision “validates the board’s decision to terminate Mr. O’Malley.”
“The amount represents a small sum compared to what the authorities believe they would be owed,” Menchyk said.
Ethics commission findings document O’Malley’s use of public resources to conduct business for the Housing and Redevelopment Insurance Exchange (HARIE), of which he was a board member.
The housing authority ramped up its number of insurance policies through HARIE under O’Malley, the commission found.
The commission’s findings also show that O’Malley traveled to 57 conferences on the housing authority’s dime between September 2010 and December 2014. That included 10 trips to Las Vegas, four to New Orleans and three to Miami. O’Malley authorized his own travel to conferences, the commission determined.
He used those trips to entertain HARIE clients and conduct HARIE business, the commission reported.
At one conference in Las Vegas, for instance, O’Malley marketed HARIE before or after taking care of housing authority business. The commission’s report lists several such instances.
The commission’s findings come a little more than one year after O’Malley and the authority settled a legal battle over the former executive director’s claim that he was fired because of age discrimination.
The authority had fired O’Malley in 2015, alleging he abused travel and sick time, used authority resources for private business and neglected his duties as the agency’s top administrator.
O’Malley subsequently won an appeal to the Pennsylvania Civil Service Commission, which ruled that he should be reinstated and that the authority’s claims were unsubstantiated.
O’Malley withdrew all legal claims to employment with the authority as part of the 2017 settlement.
