We don’t know what went into Cortland County Administrator Rob Corpora’s “secret sauce” for making his appointment work, but we hope he passes the recipe along when he retires in May. Before Corpora’s tenure, the county administrator position, whether filled or unfilled, was a landmine for successive county Legislatures. We hope legislators’ experience with Corpora in that seat has shown them how important the position is — and what it takes to get it right when filling it.
Corpora was appointed county administrator in 2019. He’d previously led the county’s information technology department for 22 years, and he leaves after a total of 34 years with Cortland County government. We wish him well. Not only because he’s a decent guy, but because he showed us the county administrator’s interactions with elected officials don’t have to look like a knife fight. The need for the position is without question, and we worry about what should happen if the position goes unfilled for too long.
Before Corpora was promoted to county administrator, the county had been without an administrator since 2014 after clashes with the first two people to hold the job. While legislators floundered in their attempts to fill the position, county government was badly mismanaged, and taxpayers paid the price.
An audit by the state Comptroller’s Office was released in December 2019, and the magnitude of the problem became unavoidably clear. The audit period was originally Jan. 1, 2017, to Sept. 6, 2018, but was extended back to Jan. 1, 2012, “to analyze financial trends.” That audit had found the county lacked so much essential financial information, key financial officials and policies and procedures that the legislature should not have been making financial decisions. As a result, in early 2020, the state withheld at least $1 million in aid because Cortland County failed to file annual financial documents for 2017 and 2018 on time, even as it paid more than $370,000 to reconcile the accounts and file the proper paperwork.
It is unclear why the 2017 annual financial document wasn’t turned in on time that year. From April 2015 to September 2017, Peggy Mousaw was the director of budget and finance, with all the duties of a budget officer and some of the duties of a county administrator. The county then hired a temporary fiscal officer in April 2018, but eventually hired another in July 2018 to help with the county’s 2019 budget.
Finally, in October 2018, Madison County Board of Supervisors Vice Chairman Dan Degear attended a meeting of the county Legislature with his family, expecting to be confirmed as the next administrator. He and Cortland County legislators were embarrassed when the issue came to a vote and his appointment was defeated, in part because legislators left outside the loop bristled at having the matter dumped in their laps for a vote with no prior knowledge of Degear or time to consider whether he was suited for the job. Yikes.
We understand the Legislature’s experiences with the first two administrators was often contentious, but the five years before Corpora’s term as administrator are proof that going without is even worse. Legislature Chair Kevin Fitch (R-Homer, Preble, Scott) has said the county will start its search for the next administrator immediately. Good. We advise the county to conduct the search as openly as possible, to avoid the missteps that plagued the attempt to hire Degear. That will deepen trust in the process among legislators and members of the public. And while we suspect Corpora’s long tenure with the county led to his success as administrator, we urge the county to consider applicants from a range of backgrounds and locales. The right candidate may come from a surprising place.
The county has a budget of $131.12 million. Its business is complex, what with all the interactions with various levels of governments and bureaucracies. Cortland County needs a professional administrator, and Corpora showed us that, with the right person, we can make it work.
