Executive editor {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. A former Auburn official who now serves as a Cayuga County legislator was accused of bullying, absenteeism and other misconduct at her city position before resigning from it in March. Stephanie DeVito, former executive director of the Auburn Downtown Business Improvement District, was the subject of three complaints to the organization's board of directors by colleagues last year.
The complaints are among several records of her final year of employment the BID provided to The Citizen last week in response to a Freedom of Information Law request. The records also show that the BID board hired a consultant to investigate the complaints against DeVito last October, weeks before she was elected to the county Legislature. The complaints accuse her of creating a toxic work environment that caused two colleagues anxiety and led another to resign from the board; working as few as three to five hours a week in her office; using her position to advance her campaign for Legislature and personal interests; and spending BID funds at her discretion, without transparency or accountability.
The investigation corroborated many of the accusations, leading the board to place DeVito on a performance improvement plan in December. She resigned after the board's personnel committee filed a February report concluding she had not satisfactorily followed the plan. The report recomme.
