No Criminal Charges Against Troy City Manager After Probe

TROY, MI — City Manager Brian Kischnick will reimburse the city $1,000 for repairs to a city-owned vehicle involved in an unreported collision in Clawson, but he won’t be criminally charged and won’t face discipline over questionable expenditures scrutinized in a nearly two-month internal investigation, the Troy City Council said this week.

The investigation by a labor and employment law attorney began June 9 after a city employee, who has not been named, raised questions about expenditures made by Kischnick over the past several months, The Detroit News reported. The attorney’s findings were discussed in a closed City Council session and the report will remain confidential, but officials did disclose some of the issues that have been resolved.

Among them is Kischnick’s agreement to pay the $1,000 deductible on the city’s insurance policy. He was at fault in the accident, but didn’t report it. The investigation also cleared him of wrongdoing in the approval of a contract with an alternative natural gas supplier that was $2,687 in the city’s favor, but without going through Troy’s contract review process.

Questions had been raised about the city manager’s use city-owned vehicles while at the same time receiving a $425-a-month stipend for his own vehicle, but the investigation didn’t show that he was using the city’s car pool for personal purposes. Food and phone accessory purchases that had been questioned were found to be for city legitimate purposes,

In the statement, the Troy City Council said it “commends the professionalism of the city employees who raised concerns, which we took very seriously and immediately referred for independent review.”
The statement aso said:

“The Troy City Council acknowledges its fiduciary responsibilities to the Troy taxpayers, and after receiving a comprehensive confidential report, we considered its contents, as well as the city manager’s demonstrated innovation and creativity, his past record of success and future plans to further the City Council strategies, and also his willingness to remediate.

“City Council will closely monitor the progress on each of the strategies we adopted on March 14, 2016, which include the ‘Review of city ordinances to address outdated policies and explore the need for new ordinances.’ ”

Image credit: City of Troy