CLEVELAND, Ohio - After Bratenahl claimed $839,000 in fire and EMS bills got lost in the mail -- or perhaps were never sent -- Cleveland is now upgrading to certified mail, because apparently their invoices needed a tracking number and a signature.
The change follows a cleveland.com and Plain Dealer story published Tuesday, in which Bratenahl Mayor Keith Benjamin said the village hadn't paid four years' worth of bills because it never received them. This, he said, was despite years of him and his predecessor asking Cleveland to send them.
Cleveland City Council members questioned Safety Director Wayne Drummond about the billing issue during Wednesday's public safety meeting. Drummond said he was "surprised" that both the current and former Bratenahl mayors denied receiving the invoices.
"I don't want to get in a back and forth, but the bills were sent," Drummond said, noting they had gone via regular U.S. mail. Moving forward, he said, invoices will be sent by certified mail "so we don't have this issue going forward."
Certified Mail is a service offered by USPS that provides proof of mailing and receipt, creating a paper trail for future invoices.
Bratenahl and Linndale, which lack their own fire and EMS departments, contract with Cleveland. Neither village had been paying for services in recent years.
From 2021 to 2024, Bratenahl accrued $839,000 in charges; Linndale built up $300,000 in bills from 2020 to 2024.
Drummond sent each village a letter in October, with years' worth of invoices attached, which spurred both villages to act. Linndale has since paid in full; Bratenahl is making $70,000 monthly payments to clear its debt by the end of 2025.
The invoices apparently caught Bratenahl Village Council off guard. Fiscal Officer Diana Cooks presented them at an Oct. 28 meeting, where council members appeared surprised and said they'd been waiting for bills for years.
It isn't clear why Linndale didn't pay, but the 108-person village's mayor Ashlee McLaughlin did not respond to a request for comment. But Cleveland says the 108-person village has already paid in full.
Benjamin told cleveland.com the lack of invoices had lingered for years.
"I don't want to place blame on anyone, on our end or Cleveland's end," Benjamin said last week. "But to the best of my knowledge, we had been waiting for those invoices to arrive from Cleveland."
Documents provided by Cleveland show all four quarterly invoices for 2024 were sent to Bratenahl at once, dated Oct. 18. The rest of the invoices, however, appear to have been created years ago, with some bearing former Mayor Frank Jackson's letterhead.
Records show Bratenahl made one $115,000 payment in June 2023 -- part of what Cleveland said was a four-installment plan to catch up.
Once Bratenahl denied receiving invoices, a reporter went back to Cleveland officials to clarify when each invoice was sent, but didn't get an answer.
Drummond didn't specify when invoices were sent, but told Council the issue is now resolved.
"This is a thing in the past," he said. "We are working collectively, collaboratively with both villages and their personnel."