Bazetta Township waiting on auditor to help recover stolen money

Bazetta Township is still missing thousands in stolen dollars, after it fell victim to a phishing scam this past September.

Township officials are still waiting on updates and potential solutions from the county auditor's office but trustees aren't feeling optimistic in recovering more than $80k belonging to Bazetta Township.

"It comes from all of our funds," explained Trustee Michael Hovis. "It affects the whole entire township and the whole entire operation."

A phishing scam resulted in the county auditor transferring thousands, but the Trumbull County Auditor Martha Yoder stated last month the township's email was not securely protected. 

Yoder blames the township's fiscal officer for asking for multifactor authentication (MFA) to be turned off for her Microsoft Office 365 email account. Yoder told 21 News in October this "removed a vital barrier and opened the door for a hacker to take over the fiscal officer's account and control it."

"We have a resolution that requires us to carry over 25% of our budget from year to year," Hovis added. "That provides us with a little bit of funding to ensure that we have the proper funding."

While the blame game continues into its third month, Hovis said all the township can do is watch its current spending.

"We're limiting overtime in both police and fire," he said. "Just because that's what you have to do this time of year and especially with this money that we're missing."

Township leaders tell 21 News they plan to pursue further legal action if those funds aren't retrieved in the next few days. Optimism is running low as no further updates were announced to community members during Tuesday's trustee meeting.

"It's a sad day that we're in the situation that we're in," Hovis said. "People make mistakes and sometimes you just got to admit those mistakes."

The Ohio Auditor's Office is also looking into the scam. The county does not have a timeline for when the funds could be recovered.