I-Team Investigates County PR Dept Salaries (Including MLM's)

[Lori Allen _]

Ed Gallek of Fox 8 recently conducted an investigation of the county's public relations department. Specifically, the amount of employees and their salaries are being questioned.

Apparently, the county has hired an outside firm from Columbus as a consultant for public relations. Mary Louise Madigan's salary is being questioned as it is currently set at $82,000 annually. Four other county spokespeople make a combined total of over $200,000 per year. The county's communications chief makes $140,000 per year. The outside consulting firm has been paid $28,750 so far this year.

1. Should the county really have an outside firm doing their PR?
2. Why did Mary Louise suddenly jump from being in the Child & Family Services to being the interim communications director for the whole county? By the way the article is worded, she may not even be interim anymore.

Even though a chief communications director remains on staff, ML is still on staff. I believe it would have made more sense to promote someone that was already within the public relations department who would be more familiar with the department and the job.

This made me wonder how much the PR people at city hall make. According to page 74 of Lakewood's 2015 Comprehensive Budget, there are two people working in the Division of General Administration, one full-time public relations/media specialist, and one part-time grants administrator. According to page 73 of Lakewood's 2015 Comprehensive Budget, the salaries combined for this division (which apparently only includes one full and one part-time person) are $188,097 per year (2015 budgeted salaries). This is almost equal to the $200,000 that four employees make at the county level.

If the city's own budget is correct, does anyone else think these salaries are a little bit too inflated? See screenshots of the budget below:

To see Ed Gallek's story, here is the link: http://fox8.com/2015/09/30/i-team-exclusive-raises-more-questions-about-how-your-tax-dollars-are-being-spent/

[Stan Austin]

Salaries are one thing but the basic criteria for a spokesperson is based on history, can their pronouncements be trusted?
Stan Austin

[Bridget Conant]

Everyone should watch that video. MLM wasn't much of a "spokesperson" She was obviously flustered and discombobulated.

And yet we trust her to know more about "healthcare" than we do?

No thanks, I'll pass.

[m buckley]

I just watched that interview. I thought for sure Ms. Madigan was going to tell Ed Galleck that she needed to go into Executive Session!

[Lori Allen _]

I like your analogy, Mark!

[marklingm]

I just watched that interview. I thought for sure Ms. Madigan was going to tell Ed Galleck that she needed to go into Executive Session!