Auditor: Former Mayor Whitfield illegally spent funds

The Ohio auditor has issued a finding for recovery, ruling that former Elyria Mayor Frank Whitfield did improperly expend city funds, which Whitfield paid back in July while denying any wrongdoing. The finding for recovery was released from Auditor Keith Faber's office on Tuesday, announcing its finding that Whitfield illegally spent $956.67 in city funds on the creation of materials for his 2024 reelection campaign. "Thank you for reaching out. Here's my comment: I've moved on," Whitfield said in a text when reached for comment Tuesday. Whitfield and his family now live in Atlanta. After learning that the Auditor's Office had written a letter outlining a proposed finding for recovery against him, Whitfield dropped a check for $956.67 in a city dropbox. He posted the act and a statement to Facebook, saying that the payment was not an acceptance of the allegation. "This action is not an admission of wrongdoing, but rather a reflection of my unwavering commitment to transparency and my deep belief that public trust is worth far more than any dollar amount," Whitfield posted. In its report, the Auditor's Office said it launched a special audit investigation into the city in April 2023 after it received a complaint from the Lorain County Prosecutor's Office alleging that Whitfield had enlisted a city vendor, Correa Media Productions, to provide advertising services to his campaign. The audit investigated a period from July 1, 2022, through Dec. 31, 2023. Whitfield left office after Dec. 31 due to his electoral loss to current Mayor Kevin Brubaker in November 2023. The allegation outlined against Whitfield was that he used videos created by Correa Media, at the time a city contractor, on his personal Facebook page WElyria, which he used for campaigning. The audit compared videos created by Correa and posted to WElyria and those posted to two separate Facebook pages. "We identified five events where content created for and paid by the city were solely posted to Mr. Whitfield's campaign Facebook page," the report said. "For the other events on the invoices, content was posted to a combination of all three Facebook pages or only to the city's Facebook pages." The office determined that of the $22,032.50 the city paid to paid to Correa during the audit period, $956.67 of it was paid for content "created and used only for Mr. Whitfield's campaign Facebook page. "Based on the special audit procedures and investigation, the auditor confirmed the allegation that Frank Whitfield illegally spent $956.67 over a span of one and a half years," the report said. The Auditor's Office said that it presented a prosecution packet to the Lorain County Prosecutor's Office at the conclusion of the investigation, and the Prosecutor's Office declined to pursue criminal charges. The final line of the report confirms that Whitfield paid the full amount back to the city on July 7 and the money was deposited into Elyria's general fund. Contact Owen MacMillan at (440) 329-7123 or omacmillan@chroniclet.com.