AUSTINTOWN — The township will not discuss open contract negotiations publicly, officials said.

The statement comes after one resident accused trustees and the township administrator of questionable hiring and collective bargaining practices at Monday’s regular board meeting.

John Mashiska of Artmar Drive asked trustees about pending raises for two clerical workers in Fiscal Officer Laurie Wolf’s office, one of whom he says will be promoted to assistant fiscal officer and receive a wage increase of 39%, and the other whom he says will receive a raise of 28%.

Mashiska also accused Township Administrator Mark D’Apolito of intimidating clerical union employees to take 2% raises for each of the next three years, with some non-specified changes to the contract, or receive only 1% increases annually.

On Tuesday, D’Apolito said he and the trustees will not comment at length about the allegations.

“The township is not interested in negotiating its labor contracts through the media,” he said.

“I can say that not all of his information is completely accurate, but I’m not going to elaborate on that because we’re not negotiating these matters except through proper procedures and channels.”

Mashiska also asserted that Dominic Moltchan, who joined the township in December as zoning inspector in training, was hired for reasons of nepotism. Moltchan is the son of Roxann Moltchan, a clerk in Wolf’s office.

Mashiska asked trustees why Moltchan was hired with no prior zoning experience and if any applicants had experience with zoning.

D’Apolito said that while Dominic is Roxann’s son, that had nothing to do with his hiring.

“He applied after the job had already been posted for quite some time,” he said. “We did not have a very well-versed applicant pool with prior zoning experience.”

D’Apolito said one of the only two applicants with prior zoning experience was a code enforcement officer in Youngstown. That woman, Laura Fulmer, was later hired as assistant zoning inspector in Liberty Township, but is no longer employed there.

In December, D’Apolito said that both of those candidates had only municipal zoning experience.

“Their experience was with city and village zoning,” he said. “Municipalities have home-rule powers, and so they operate zoning offices much differently than townships do. When you don’t get exactly what you’re looking for right off the bat, you have to get creative and think about what skill sets you need, which brings us to Dominic.”

D’Apolito reiterated what he said in December — that Moltchan’s hiring was based on his experience working in a highly-regulated environment as security manager at Hollywood Casino in Austintown.

“Since zoning is very code based and rule oriented, and in the field it’s a matter of how you talk to people, we felt his background with being strict while providing a good experience would be beneficial skills for him to be trained as a zoning inspector,” D’Apolito said.

Current zoning inspector Darren Crivelli announced last summer his intention to retire at the end of June.

Crivelli, 63, has spent 29 years as a zoning inspector, beginning in Austintown and then leaving for 10 years in 1999 to do the job in Boardman before returning to Austintown in 2008.

While both of them are on the job, the township is paying roughly $165,500 worth of annual salary. Moltchan’s salary is $75,000 per year, while Crivelli makes $90,459.

Moltchan represented the department at Monday’s meeting and D’Apolito said Crivelli will be assigning more of the daily duties to him in the weeks ahead.

“Darren will be done in June, and he’s going to start taking some vacation time and transitioning out of the office very shortly,” he said.