CLEVELAND, Ohio – Three of the four finalists for Cuyahoga County sheriff, selected by County Executive Armond Budish’s administration, fail to meet either state or county requirements for the job, including the candidate Budish is recommending to County Council.
Resumes obtained by cleveland.com through a records request show only one finalist meets all the requirements by living in the county and holding both a college degree and a current Ohio peace officer’s training certificate.
Budish on Tuesday asked County Council to extend by one year the interim appointment of Sheriff’s Department veteran David Schilling, though Shilling lacks a college degree.
A charter amendment that county voters overwhelmingly approved on Nov. 5 requires that the sheriff hold a four-year degree in any field or a two-year degree in criminal justice or law enforcement.
Schilling has pledged to obtain a degree while on the job and the county Law Department issued an opinion after the election that concludes the requirement would not apply to an “incumbent” sheriff until the start of 2021.
Here are some of qualifications the candidates list on their resumes:
•Schilling has served as interim sheriff since Aug. 6. He does not hold a college degree, but has served at the Sheriff’s Department since 1994 and held the rank of sergeant before becoming acting sheriff. He is a county resident, and holds a current Ohio peace officer’s training certificate, which Ohio law requires a sheriff to hold.
• Bryan Kaminski is a sergeant in the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department, where he has served since 1994. Kaminski has a master’s degree in criminal justice administration, a bachelor’s degree in political science, and expects to obtain his doctorate degree in criminal justice administration in 2020, his resume says. He is a county resident and holds a current Ohio peace officer’s training certificate.
• Edward Dabkowski is an assistant special agent in charge of the Columbus Field Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, based out of Cleveland. He has been a federal special agent since 1995, and previously worked for the Office of the Inspector General in Washington D.C. Dabkowski has a master’s degree in international affairs and a bachelor’s degree in international studies. He is a county resident, but does not hold a peace officer’s training certificate.
•Kim Nuesse is the former police chief of Sandusky and Minerva Park and has been a police officer since 1983. She has a bachelor’s degree in organizational leadership. Nuesse is not a county resident. Her resume does not say if she holds a current peace officer’s training certificate.
Budish’s administration selected the four finalists from 11 candidates recommended by Municipal Solutions LLC, an Arizona-based search firm that the county hired last August and agreed to pay up to $32,000.
Budish spokeswoman Mary Louise Madigan told cleveland.com that the administration wanted to interview the finalists who did not meet the requirements for sheriff because they might be qualified for other positions within the county.
“Every one of those top four candidates was worth talking to as we are considering other positions within the jail,” Madigan said.
Municipal Solutions President and CEO David Evertsen told cleveland.com that the search for candidates was challenging at times given that Ohio law requires sheriffs to live in the counties they serve, and county voters imposed the educational requirement after the search was completed.
“Somebody might have had less education, but more years of experience,” Evertsen said. “More experienced candidates could’ve lived outside of Cuyahoga County, while less experienced ones lived in the county. How do we reconcile that? We don’t. We provide all this information to the county, then they made the determination of who they wanted to interview.”
Budish has publicly credited Schilling with improving operations and morale at the Sheriff’s Department. In a news release, Budish said Schilling has set the agency on a “strong path forward.”
Chief of Staff Bill Mason previously told cleveland.com that extending Schilling’s interim appointment would help bring consistency as the jail moves forward from a year in which eight inmates died and a criminal investigation resulted in charges against former jail leaders and guards.
Cuyahoga County Interim Sheriff David Schilling