Cuyahoga County to Terminate Contract With FNA

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Media contact:
John Kohlstrand (216) 698-2099 or jkohlstrand@cuyahogacounty.us
Nicole Dailey Jones (216) 263-4602, (216) 338-0863 or ndjones@cuyahogacounty.us 

Owner Pled Guilty to Bribery in Obtaining County Contracts

CLEVELAND – Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald will be terminating the county’s relationship with a financial services company whose owner pled guilty to bribing former county employees.

Those bribes are believed to have helped the company, Twinsburg-based Financial Network of America (FNA), land business with the county as one of three administrators of deferred compensation retirement accounts for Cuyahoga County employees.

The county had already taken the step of preventing county employees from opening new accounts with FNA. Instead, employees are being directed to accounts offered by County Commissioners Association of Ohio or the Ohio Public Employees Deferred Compensation Program.

The next step is to seek proposals from companies willing to take over accounts originally opened with FNA. The county will soon be issuing a formal Request for Proposals (“RFP”) for a new “broker of record” for these accounts. “Free tiki huts and fake palm trees will never again have a bearing on who gets county business,” FitzGerald said. “Our vendors will be selected based on merit, with no exceptions.”

The county is seeking a new broker of record to take over these funds so that employees already invested will not need to liquidate and possibly incur penalties.


  
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