Tri-State fiscal officer abruptly quits after council rejects her separation agreement

COLLEGE CORNER, Ohio (WXIX) - The top financial official of this small village of just under 400 residents has abruptly quit after council members recently rejected her proposed separation agreement.

FOX19 NOW first reported on April 15 that College Corner Fiscal Officer Jennifer Woods has a contract setting her annual salary at $72,467 without required office hours and more than 150 days off.

Mayor Molly Cason and another newly elected village leader, Councilwoman Danyell Bolser, have been questioning Woods' annual pay and contract for months, as well as the way other things were set up by the previous council.

Woods' lawyer notified the mayor in a single-line email at 8:28 a.m. Tuesday that Woods was gone as of Friday, three days prior, a copy of it shows.

"Ms. Woods is resigning effective June 30," the email states.

Woods' attorney, Jon Allison with Freking, Myers & Reul in downtown Cincinnati, declined comment for this story.

Woods has never responded to multiple previous requests from FOX19 NOW to comment. Neither has her father, who did not return messages seeking comment Wednesday.

Other village officials leaving Woods is not the only one resigning.

A village councilman, William Bake, also abruptly quit this week.

So did the village maintenance contractor, village attorney and now Woods' husband and son will no longer do maintenance work, according to Mayor Cason.

Bake's departure comes without any public explanation either.

"I can no longer serve on the village council. This is my resignation letter," he wrote in a brief letter Sunday to the mayor and council members.

Bake was appointed to the council in September 2021 by the former mayor who headed up College Corner for two decades until Cason unseated him last fall.

Controversial contract Woods' contract was passed by the council late last year, just weeks before Cason and Bolser took office.

Then, Woods failed to turn over documents about village finances for weeks after they sent her public record requests on Dec. 21.

The mayor and Councilwoman Bolser say they were simply exercising their elected duty to see how taxpayer money was spent.

Only Woods and her father, Michael Sims who is the village administrator, had keys to the village building until recently and the mayor says she still lacks keys to the portion of the facility where the financial records are stored.

The mayor turned to the Butler County Prosecutor's Office and Bolser said she had to sue her own village in the Ohio Court of Claims before they were provided access to the public records

Now, Mayor Cason tells FOX19 NOW Woods' sudden departure comes as Cason still has no access to financial records on file at the village building and the village's annual budget is required to be turned into the state this month.

Cason was finally put on the village bank account just last week.

Until Woods quit, only Woods and her father, Michael Sims, the village part-time unpaid administrator who oversaw her contract, had access to the records under rules also passed by the former council.

Woods and her father also are the only ones who could speak directly with the village attorney.

The mayor said she reached out to Sims to see if he is staying but he has not responded so far.

"We didn't ask (Woods) to leave - that was her choice," the mayor told FOX19 NOW. "I don't know her reasoning as to leave so it's hard for me to comment. Do I think it's a fair thing for the taxpayers? Absolutely.

"It's not fair to taxpayers to pay such a high salary in such a small village. I feel she's also leaving in an unfair manner seeing as how her and her father have had total financial control and no one else knows how to operate the village and she left without even giving a notice."

State auditors, meanwhile, are reviewing the village's records as part of College Corner's regular audit that occurs every other year.

Butler County Prosecutor Mike Gmoser declined to comment for this story.

Both Woods and Sims were council-appointed: Woods in 2006, and her father in 2021, according to Preble County Board of Elections records.

Woods was with the village for a total of 26 years.

She was appointed the fiscal clerk after working for the Southwest Regional Water District, village records show