The state found that Pittston Twp. Supervisor David Slezak and former Madison Twp. Supervisor Andrew Nazarenko violated the state Ethics Act <\/p>\n
SCRANTON, Pa. \u2014 The state Ethics Commission said Wednesday that a public official in Luzerne County\u00a0<\/a>had public employees work on his home on taxpayer time and a former official in Lackawanna County<\/a> awarded a six-figure contract to his daughter\u2019s company, impacting the bonus she received.<\/p>\n The state found that Pittston Twp. Supervisor David Slezak and former Madison Twp. Supervisor Andrew Nazarenko violated the state Ethics Act and ordered that they make payments to settle their cases.<\/p>\n The commission\u2019s investigations will also be forwarded to the state Attorney General\u2019s Office, but without a recommendation on whether the law enforcement agency should follow up. That\u2019s typically done \u201cas a matter of course,\u201d the commission said in its report.<\/p>\n The state prosecutor\u2019s office declined to comment.<\/p>\n
The ethics commission found that Slezak, a Pittston Twp. supervisor since 2018 and roadmaster since 2021, received free work on his home during the last several years from township employees while they were supposed to be on the clock. That added up to roughly $6,388.04 worth of labor and materials.<\/p>\n The commission also said that Slezak did not clock out from his job as roadmaster to attend supervisor meetings and collected an extra $1,591.48 in pay between 2021 and 2024.<\/p>\n That work included construction of walls in his garage, painting the first floor of his house and his garage, pumping his septic tank, removing a carpet and installing tiles and ceiling fans and repairing his truck door and backhoe, the report shows.<\/p>\n Attempts to reach Slezak for comment were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n Township Administrator Kyle Rozitski said in an email that, \u201cThe Township found out today that the investigation has concluded, and we will abide by any recommendations of the commission going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n The commission wrote that they reached an agreement with Slezak, who will pay $6,888.04 back to the township and amend his statements of financial interest for the years 2021 and 2022 to accurately report his direct and indirect sources of income.<\/p>\n
Nazarenko, a Madison Twp. supervisor from 2022 to 2025, also found himself under scrutiny by the ethics commission for awarding his daughter\u2019s employer a six-figure contract that had an impact on her bonus.<\/p>\n The commission\u2019s investigation found that Nazarenko made a motion in 2023 to pay Pella Windows and Doors of NEPA roughly $162,000 of its COVID-19 recovery money to replace township windows. The final cost landed closer to $174,000. Nazarenko signed two of the seven checks written to pay the company.<\/p>\n Nazarenko\u2019s daughter, a longtime Pella Windows employee, received a 2024 bonus of $7,500, which was calculated from company revenue, the commission wrote.<\/p>\n Reached by phone, Nazarenko said he disclosed during a meeting that his daughter worked for Pella Windows but noted he should not have voted.<\/p>\n Newswatch 16 asked Nazarenko if he ever touched the funds from his daughter\u2019s bonus and he said he did not.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s over now, anyway,\u201d Nazarenko said.<\/p>\n Nazarenko agreed to pay a fine of $750 to settle.<\/p>\n A representative of Madison Twp. could not immediately be reached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The state found that Pittston Twp. Supervisor David Slezak and former Madison Twp. Supervisor Andrew Nazarenko violated the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-203833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nPittston Township <\/p>\n
\nMadison Township <\/p>\n