Pittsburgh Deputy Mayor details findings of P-card investigation
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- The arrest of a former city employee who scrawled a Nazi epithet on a North Side sidewalk sparked a slew of questions: Why had Mario Askar been terminated for poor performance only to be hired as a contractor months later? Why did the city pay Ashkar by P-card instead of a regular check?
The city's internal investigation into the P-card matter says the case is closed, laying the entire responsibility for the irregular payments at the feet of the CitiParks Director. The district attorney's office has issued a search warrant, looking for other answers.
Mario Ashkar's arrest on the North Side ignited a firestorm around the terminated employee's rehiring and city payments by P-card.
The city released the findings of the Office of Municipal Investigations, which determined the irregular payments violated city policy and were solely the actions of CitiParks Director Kathryn Vargas.
Deputy Mayor Jake Pawlak also called the payments "honest mistakes" and said Ashkar's hiring was not the result of a personal relationship.
"The OMI investigation found that there was no basis for assertions that circumstances surrounding the contractor's hiring were motivated by a prior relationship between the contractor and Director Vargas," Pawlak said.
Pawlak confirmed the Allegheny County District Attorney's Office executed a search warrant on the administration, asking for this report and all material examined by OMI, an action Pawlak chalked up to continuing bad blood between the DA's office and the Gainey administration.
"This is another example of the district attorney's office pursuing an issue that has received media attention, but we feel there is no justification for a criminal investigation of this type," Pawlak said.
Controller Rachel Heisler, who initiated this investigation, also expressed doubts about the completeness of the report, releasing a statement saying questions remain.
"In my role as the City's fiscal watchdog, I am eager to understand how this situation initially arose, whether there is a larger problem, and how we can prevent something similar from happening in the future."
KDKA-TV asked Pawlak whether anyone else in the administration had influenced Vargas to hire Ashkar. Pawlak said no and that the buck stopped with Vargas.
Sheehan: Was that examined in the investigation?
Pawlak: It was not examined in the investigation, but I can tell you there was no other involvement in the decision to make the hire.
Pawlak says he's ordered Vargas to be retrained in the use of P-cards and her department's transactions to be monitored by the budget office. Vargas will not be terminated as a result of the investigation.
"The Gainey administration believes that hard-working, exemplary employees who make honest mistakes should be allowed to learn from those mistakes and have an opportunity to do better," Pawlak added.
However, the controller and the district attorney believe there are still unanswered questions and are pursuing investigations of their own. For them, this matter is still not closed.
