An annual review of JobsOhio released Thursday found a handful of instances where the nonprofit failed to submit paperwork for things like conflicts of interest, missed performance metrics and financial disclosures.


After reviewing 45 procedures, the audit is largely unremarkable, with a few key exceptions .


In one section, auditors looked at the financial disclosure forms for JobsOhio employees who are required to file them and found two who had missed a May filing deadline, although one was granted an extension which they did meet.


In another, auditors randomly selected 10 financial expenditures and the documentation supporting them, all including public officials. In nine of those, they found documentation to support the expense, but in one, they did not.


Most notable in the audit is the section where auditors randomly selected 10 JobsOhio board members and employees confidential financial interests and compared them to the projects that JobsOhio funds to look for conflicts of interest.


The audit found three board members or employees, who are not named, who had financial interests in four projects that received funding from JobsOhio.


Two of those projects did not include disclosures of potential conflicts. In all of these cases, the board members or employees names were not directly attached to the projects.


Finally, fifteen projects were selected to see if they had met the metrics laid out at the time they were funded. Of those 15, eight did not meet their metrics and one did not provide a reason explaining the shortfall.


Those metrics can include things like number of jobs created and payroll.

Ryan Squire, a spokesperson for JobsOhio, said the audit reinforces the idea that the organization operates efficiently. 

"JobsOhio takes its fiduciary responsibility very seriously and is proud that it has had clean audits with zero material findings in its 14-year history. We thank Ohio Auditor Faber for his review and confirmation that our compliance and control procedures continue to prove that they are working to ensure JobsOhio’s dollars are spent to further economic development in Ohio," Squire said. 


The review, which was done by independent audit firm Deloitte and Touche, LLP, is in lieu of an official state audit, which is the standard procedure for public entities.


Since JobsOhio is a private nonprofit that operates from profits from hard liquor sales, it is able to operate largely in secret, since the law that created the agency diverted those liquor profits from the general fund to the economic development entity.


Basically, JobsOhio operates the distribution network for hard liquor and is funded by the profits.


As such, this previously public money is no longer able to be tracked the way it would be if it were still treated as public money in the general fund.


The review released Thursday is not a comprehensive review, but is rather designed to "assist in the evaluation of the JobsOhio, JobsOhio Beverage System and JobsOhio Growth Capital's compliance with certain requirements, including Chapter 187 of the Ohio Revised Code for the year ended June 30, 2024."


The report makes clear that the review offers no opinions or conclusions and that "had we performed additional procedures, other matters might have come to our attention that would have been reported to you."