CLEVELAND, OH – Ahmed Abdullah El-Kwafi Abonamah was required to have taken six hours of initial fiscal education courses from the Ohio Auditor of State before he began inflating the budget of the mayor’s office from $1.6 million to $3.7 million during Mayor Justin Bibb’s first two years in office. Bibb is more than halfway through his four-year term in office as mayor, and so is Abonamah as his fiscal officer. The mayor’s handpicked fiscal officer is required to take another 18 hours of continuing education courts before his boss’ term ends. Ohio Auditor of State Keith Faber’s fiscal officer training and certification portal does not show Abonamah meeting any training requirements.
Fiscal officer training is a requirement of the Fiscal Integrity Act the Ohio General Assembly enacted that took effect on March 23, 2015. Every fiscal officer managing the state, counties, cities, school districts, libraries and other taxing entities must undergo fiscal training from the Ohio Auditor of State.
A search of Ohio Auditor of State Keith Faber’s “Fiscal Integrity Act” portal doesn’t produce any results under Abonamah’s name to prove that he’s taken the six training hours he needed before he started working, or within the first year. Bibb’s fiscal officer has handled over $6 billion in public funds since January 2022 without first being trained to know the state fiscal laws he was required to obey.
Abonamah is an attorney who was admitted to practice law in the state of Ohio in 2011. Ohio’s elicense lookup does not identify him as a Certified Public Accountant or even a Public Accountant. He studied Arabic language at Georgetown University and Middlebury College. His Dayton University degree is in political science. Abonamah earned a law degree from Case Western Reserve University.
Abonamah’s job before joining the Bibb administration was in the securities department of the United States Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) for $192,927 a year. He had just been appointed to manage the Office of Credit Ratings in 2021 after Bibb’s November election. It’s a division of the SEC which examined “Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations (NRSRO)” that evaluate the credit ratings of organizations like Standard & Poor and Moody.
Abonamah’s only relationship to cities was the “bond ratings” the NRSRO’s issued municipal governments for bond investors to use as a municipal bond investing tool. Nothing in his background suggests that he was prepared to oversee a municipal finance department under state and local municipal finances laws absent from his prior work history. For Abonamah, he told reporters Bibb was a ticket back to Ohio.
For Bibb, Abonamah was a “diversity, equity and inclusion” hire and not one based on his specialized or directly applicable knowledge. A more logical choice to lead the finance department would have been Mayor Frank Jackson’s finance director Sharon Dumas’ deputy director, or another veteran employee with “near the top” municipal finance experience. In appointing Abonamah, Bibb weakened his own opportunity to learn the laws behind successfully managing a municipal finance department. Watching and listening to Bibb’s 2024 budget discussions with the Council was eye opening for the specifics he was unable to provide.
The fiscal officer training duties Abonamah appears to have neglected to discharge are found at Section 733.81 of the Ohio Revised Code. It’s a law the General Assembly of Ohio enacted on March 23, 2015 to raise the training standards for fiscal officers, and to let a single member of Council’s affidavit be the catalyst that leads to their removal from office. Section 733. 78(B)(1) of the Ohio Revised Code explains the state law that allows a single member of council file a complaint with the Ohio Auditor of State that causes the fiscal officer to be removed from office.
“If a fiscal officer purposely, knowingly, or recklessly fails to perform a fiscal duty expressly imposed by law with respect to the fiscal duties of the office of fiscal officer or purposely, knowingly, or recklessly commits any act expressly prohibited by law with respect to the fiscal duties of the office of fiscal officer, a member of the legislative authority of the municipal corporation may submit a sworn affidavit alleging the violation, together with evidence supporting the allegations, to the auditor of state. The sworn affidavit and evidence shall be submitted in the format prescribed by rule of the auditor of state under section 117.45 of the Revised Code. A person who makes a false statement in a sworn affidavit, for purposes of this section, is guilty of falsification under section 2921.13 of the Revised Code.”
Coming from a federal instead of a municipal government background placed Abonomah at a “statutory” disadvantage when Bibb appointed him, since he didn’t first learn Cleveland’s charter, ordinances, administrative code and state municipal finance laws at the SEC. The first “fiscal duty” he recklessly failed to perform was to not obtain required state fiscal officer training before he started working or during his first 12 months in office.
Subsequent law violating expenditures and transfers, or any statutory deadlines he may have missed, would be further evidence that Abonomah failed to perform fiscal duties imposed by law. During his first months in office in 2022, Abonomah failed to ensure thousands of taxpayers owed municipal income tax refunds were paid. Councilors have complained of his transfers of funds between line items without legislative approval. At the SEC, Abonamah would not have read Sections 5705.14, 5705.15 and 5705.16 of the Ohio Revised Code to know funds can’t be transferred without a resolution of Council. He’d have missed learning Section 5705.41’s restrictions on spending so as not to run afoul of Section 5705.45’s “liability for wrongful payment from public funds.”
In fiscal year 2024, Abonamah will manage around 260 finance department employees to spend an overall $2.06 billion in Cleveland tax, enterprise fund and grant dollars. He’ll direct $778.7 million in general funds for services. In his 2024 budget statement to Cleveland taxpayers, he’s “pleased” the year will end with a “structurally balanced” budget and a $617,000 reserve.
The $617,000 reserve is such a tiny amount it could be wiped out by employee overtime after a week of heavy snow, or a ruptured water or sewer line in the middle of East 9th Street. Public safety overtime for the April 8, 2024 solar eclipse could have put a dent in his $617,000 reserve. In Abonamah’s untrained mind, a $617,000 projected budget surplus is healthy and stable.
Amazingly, spending everything but $617,000 isn’t viewed by the Bibb administration as “wasteful” and a failure to plan for emergencies or the future. Cleveland’s current budget busting mayor has expensive travel, vehicle and spending tastes. According to Abonamah, he plans to use $17 million from the City’s Payroll Reserve Fund to cover the costs of a 27th pay period occurring in 2024.
Wiping out reserve funds puts Abonamah one step closer to a budget deficit and possible criminal charges for dereliction of duty under Cleveland’s Ord. No. 615.12(d) and (e). It’s against the law to spend more money than Council appropriates that leads to a deficit in any fund.
With Bibb being $617,000 away from ending 2024 with a deficit, and the city of Cleveland’s finances under the management of an untrained fiscal officer, Cleveland Council President Blaine Griffin should be ready to hold the mayor accountable for the tax increase he may beg for to cover his lavishly immature “pie in the sky” spending.
