CLEVELAND, OHIO – Inside the closed doors of East Cleveland City Hall, there should be a frantic search underway for a “legal time machine.” Mayor Sandra Morgan and $400‑an‑hour Receiver, George Shoup III, should be huddled in a “straight panic” meeting. The topic? How to erase 57 days of illegal spending.
They should be looking for a legal way to pass a “retroactive” budget that serves as a legislative eraser to wipe away the fact that since January 1, 2026, every city check or contract signed by unbonded and uncertified Director of Finance Lynn Ann Gries has been a violation of state law. There’s just one problem. Under Ohio law, there is no “undo” button. No “deleting.”
The Ohio Supreme Court has been remarkably consistent on one point. In cases like State ex rel. Grendell v. Walder (2022), the court reinforced the “void ab initio” or “void from the beginning” doctrine. If an expenditure is made without a fiscal officer’s certificate — which requires a pre-existing, council-approved budget — the transaction is void from the beginning.
Lynn Ann Gries cannot “certify” a void act. Council cannot pass an ordinance today that magically breathes legal life into a check signed three weeks ago. As unsuspended general laws exist today, the millions of dollars spent by the Morgan administration since New Year’s Day are not “city expenditures.” They are, according to R.C. 5705.45, the personal debts of the officials who authorized them.
Even if Morgan, Shoup and Council President Timothy Austin agree to try and bypass the Ohio Revised Code, they hit a brick wall in the form of the East Cleveland City Charter. Section 60 of the Charter mandates that any budget submitted to Council must include a comparison of the previous two years’ expenditures as approved by Council. The specific language is found in Charter Section 60(b)(c)(d).
The requirements of Section 60 of East Cleveland’s charter render the spreadsheet Financial Supervisor Tisha Turner has been using as useless. Consider, that 2025 was void. As interim mayor, Morgan submitted a “budget” with no revenue. Council never legally approved a valid 2025 appropriation ordinance.
The two years expenditures associated with an approved budget, as required in Charter Section 60(b), can’t be added to the 2024 budget to meet the requirement. It’s a reality that causes Morgan, Shoup and Gries to violate numerous laws to build a budget based on a foundation of air. They can’t compare current spending to the past two years of approved expenditures because the budgets don’t exist.
Gries can’t even today sign a “then and now” certificate certifying that the contract she signed “then” in January 2026 and was approved in the “now” at the time she approved the expense or contract. As of today, the Morgan administration and Shoup have operated for 57 days without a council approved budget.
The Law Department is likely whispering about “Then and Now” certificates under R.C. 5705.41(D). This allows a fiscal officer to certify that money was available at the time of the contract (“Then”) and is available now (“Now”). Don’t. This is not a “technicality.” East Cleveland has no more power to remain open without an appropriation from council, than President Donald J. Trump has to keep federal workers working without an appropriation from Congress.
Shoup should seek a legal opinion from his legal advisor, Attorney General David Yost, who has already issued his R.C. 5705.45 thoughts in OPINION NO. 2021-001 on January 8, 2021.
For Gries to sign such a certificate for a January 2026 contract, she would have to swear that the money was appropriated in January. If not, she had 30 days to obtain council’s approval pursuant to R.C. 5705.41(D).
“If no certificate is furnished as required, upon receipt by the taxing authority of the subdivision or taxing unit of a certificate of the fiscal officer stating that there was at the time of the making of such contract or order and at the time of the execution of such certificate a sufficient sum appropriated for the purpose of such contract and in the treasury or in process of collection to the credit of an appropriate fund free from any previous encumbrances, such taxing authority may authorize the drawing of a warrant in payment of amounts due upon such contract, but such resolution or ordinance shall be passed within thirty days after the taxing authority receives such certificate; provided that, if the amount involved is less than one hundred dollars in the case of counties or three thousand dollars in the case of all other subdivisions or taxing units, the fiscal officer may authorize it to be paid without such affirmation of the taxing authority of the subdivision or taxing unit, if such expenditure is otherwise valid.”
Since there was no budget, I have highlighted the language in red for Gries to read and understand that signing that document would be a fraudulent statement on a public record. For a woman with no municipal training and a significant family fortune at stake, signing a “Then and Now” certificate today isn’t a solution. It’s a confession of records falsification.
This brings us back to George Shoup III. The consent order from Court of Claims Judge Lisa Sadler commanded Shoup to “ensure compliance with Chapter 5705.” If Shoup participates in a scheme to “retroactively” pass a budget, he is not ensuring any of Chapter 5705’s compliance. He is facilitating a cover-up.
Shoup is an officer of the court. If he advises the city to back-date documents or ignore the comparison requirements of Section 60, he is in contempt of the order that created his $3,200‑a‑day salary.
The laws of Ohio and the Charter of East Cleveland do not bend for “saviors.” They do not bend for $400‑an‑hour attorneys.
The “spreadsheet” Barbara Mattei Smith and Turner used over the last two years has created a legal black hole of unreliable data that affects the city’s finances. Every payroll check, every vendor payment, and every federal drawdown made without a council-approved budget is a ghost in the machine.
Morgan cannot legislate her way out of 2025. George Shoup cannot lawyer his way out of January and February 2026. They’ve placed themselves in their own trap by refusing to learn, master and obey “unsuspended” state and local general laws. If there’s a panic at City Hall, it’s coming from an administration finally realizing that R.C. 5705.45 doesn’t care about their art degrees, corporate dealings, $400 an hour salaries or statutory titles. It only cares about the law.
They didn’t just fail to pass a budget. They failed to obey the law. And in East Cleveland, the bill is due.
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