Akron and Summit County will seek an independent financial audit of their contracts with Oriana House.
The move comes as the Akron-based nonprofit is facing additional scrutiny from the community.
Akron City Council members last week questioned Oriana leaders after parents complained that their children and others went to the nonprofit’s facilities for help but instead overdosed or died.
Oriana provides addiction treatment, counseling and court-ordered corrections services. Its clients include the city and county.
“As we, as a community, strive to build collaborative, effective solutions to combat opiate addiction, my priority has always been to provide the victims of addiction with safe, healthy environments in which to recover,” Mayor Dan Horrigan said Monday in a news release.
He noted that since he became mayor last January, he has been reviewing the city’s agreements to make sure “public dollars are being well spent.”
Besides the audit, Horrigan said he also plans to re-evaluate the process used to award contracts for these services.
Jason Dodson, chief of staff for County Executive Ilene Shapiro, said the county will follow the city’s lead.
“It makes sense to look at the finances and if the city goes down that path, it makes sense to look at both contracts together,” he said.
The county also will seek an audit of the local men’s and women’s community-based corrections facilities run by Oriana.
The governments want “to make sure the services they are providing under the agreement are consistent with what we’re paying for.”
Summit County and Akron together pay the organization about $10 million annually to provide drug screening, monitoring, beds in halfway houses, treatment and other services to courts and social service agencies.
City and county leaders are deciding who will do the audit and when it will be done.
Bernie Rochford, vice president of Oriana House, said the agency is happy to assist with any audit, as it has in the past.
“We welcome the city, the county or anybody who wants to do a programmatic audit or a fiscal audit,” he said. “We have been through numerous audits that have shown we do a good job. Our staff works hard to provide the level of services one would come to expect.”
Rochford said Oriana comes under scrutiny every three to five years because it is a large organization that provides a lot of services.
“I think these are things we should do routinely,” he said.
Akron Councilwoman Tara Mosley-Samples, who was among the council members most vocal in her concerns about Oriana, was pleased to hear about the plans for an audit. Oriana has custody of her son, an addict who has been court-ordered there since August.
“In order for the necessary changes to occur, an independent audit is vital,” said Mosley-Samples, a former Akron Municipal Court bailiff.
Stephanie Warsmith can be reached at 330-996-3705, swarsmith@thebeaconjournal.com and on Twitter: @swarsmithabj . Rick Armon can be reached at 330-996-3569 or rarmon@thebeaconjournal.com.