[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 57 (Tuesday, April 10, 2018)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E417-E418]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         HONORING THE RETIREMENT OF RAYMOND E. FLICKINGER, JR.

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. TIM RYAN

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, April 10, 2018

  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to note that while there 
is record turnover in high level federal government positions, the 
opposite is true in Barberton, Ohio.
  For 70 years, the Barberton Finance Director position has been held 
by only two men, a father and his son. Raymond E. Flickinger Sr. and 
Raymond E. Flickinger Jr. have held the purse strings in Barberton all 
that time.
  Ray Sr. took office in 1948. In 1978, Ray Jr. became the assistant 
city finance director. Ray Sr. retired in 1980 and Ray Jr. took over as 
Director. On March 31, Ray Jr. stepped down from his position.
  Mayor William Judge whose father also served as Mayor noted that Ray 
has ``weathered storms and kept on top of them.'' I want to 
congratulate and thank the Flickingers for two lifetimes of public 
service. I am inspired by these two dedicated officials who did their 
duty day after day and met the challenges of service for so many years. 
All the best to Ray Flickinger Jr. in retirement.
  I include in the Record an article that appeared in the The Akron 
Beacon Journal on March 26.

 Father and Son Guided Barberton City Finances for 70 Years; Era Will 
                             End This Month

                           (By Paula Schleis)

       Barberton--For 70 years, the man in charge of the city's 
     purse strings has answered to the name Raymond E. Flickinger.
       First dad, then son, in a tenure so taken for granted that 
     no one has bothered to challenge either at the ballot since 
     1968.
       The era will end on March 31 when Barberton Finance 
     Director Raymond E. Flickinger--the younger--retires and 
     hands the city's ledger over to someone with a different 
     name.
       ``It's time,'' Flickinger said, a smile suggesting that 
     he's already counting down the hours.
       While the elder and the younger both held the same post, 
     their jobs were wildly different, covering dramatically 
     different eras as this blue-collar city rose, fell and then 
     embarked on some modern soul-searching.
       The elder Raymond E. Flickinger was born in 1910--less than 
     two decades after the town was founded--and grew up in the 
     family's grocery business. Flickinger's, the store, was once 
     an icon in downtown Barberton.
       Ray Sr. took his turn on the European front during World 
     War II, participating in the invasion of Normandy.
       Two years after the war ended, the local Democratic Party 
     asked if he'd run for the open seat of city auditor a post 
     that would later evolve into finance director.
       He won, took office in 1948 and started on-the-job 
     training.
       ``Things were a lot simpler then,'' the younger Flickinger 
     said of his dad's era. There were payrolls to make and 
     budgets to balance, but ``you didn't have accounting 
     standards back then.''


                             Simpler budget

       Seated in his office, Flickinger pulled an old booklet from 
     a shelf of documents. It was the city budget from 1954, a 28-
     page pamphlet itemizing $757,000 in income and expenditures. 
     Flickinger compares it to this year's city budget. Almost $18 
     million. It takes a nearly 200-page booklet to explain it.
       Flickinger, the younger, started doing some light 
     bookkeeping for his dad when he was still in high school.
       ``He paid me out of his own pocket to do things for him,'' 
     Flickinger said.
       He never expected it to be his career.
       ``We didn't have a plan for me to take over,'' he said.
       Yet by 1975, wouldn't you know it, that's exactly the 
     course he found himself on. The city hired him as a full-time 
     accountant. By 1978, he was the city's assistant finance 
     director, his dad's second in command.
       ``Nepotism wasn't an issue back in the day,'' he chuckled. 
     City Council approved the promotion. No one batted an eye. It 
     was universally accepted that Flickinger, the elder, would 
     groom his son to take over after his own upcoming retirement.
       In 1980, after 32 years, the elder stepped down, the 
     younger stepped up. No need to change the name on the office 
     door.
       Ray Sr. was 72 when he retired. He hadn't been in a hurry.
       ``He loved working,'' his son said. ``It was pretty much 
     his life. He was one of those people who could have just 
     worked till he died.'' But he didn't. He died in 1998.
       Barberton was a very different city when Ray Jr. took over.
       When his father first became auditor, Barberton was a 
     manufacturing powerhouse. Its founding was unique in Ohio, an 
     industrial community planned by industrialist Ohio Columbus 
     Barber, who set up half a dozen of his own factories and 
     populated them with tens of thousands of immigrants and 
     Appalachian transplants.
       But by 1980, the place nicknamed the ``Magic City'' because 
     of its overnight rise had become a poster child for the Rust 
     Belt.
       The younger Flickinger helped navigate Barberton through a 
     recession, a period when many cities were going into default.
       ``It was thought that cities should start following the 
     same accounting standards as private industry,'' he said.
       What followed were challenging, time-consuming and often 
     mind-numbing rules and regulations. Flickinger rolled with 
     the punches, supported by a talented staff that helped his 
     office evolve into a department that needed to know as much 
     law as finance.
       That's also about the time that Flickinger decided on a new 
     administrative style: Avoid the limelight at all costs.


                             National news

       Barberton's waning fortunes made national news, and 
     Flickinger found himself quoted in a New York Times story 
     about the town's struggle. The very next day, a 
     representative from a bond rating firm called Flickinger to 
     announce the city was being downgraded because of the story. 
     Flickinger snorted: ``I decided I was better off staying in 
     the background. I'm honest and I'll tell people like it is. 
     But I don't need to hear myself talk.''
       That's a trait that came to Mayor Bill Judge's mind 
     immediately when asked to describe his finance director.
       ``He does a great job of explaining things, and he's always 
     been the go-to guy, and for that he should have an ego, a big 
     one,'' Judge said. ``But he doesn't have an ego.''
       Barberton gradually started to recover in the 1990s.
       ``But the more you collect, the more you spend,'' 
     Flickinger said. Road programs expanded. Health care costs 
     rose. EPA standards added to the cost of maintaining a city 
     water and sewer department. Salaries ballooned.
       In 1954, that little budget pamphlet said $263,000 was 
     spent on the city's safety forces. In 2018, police and fire 
     will cost residents $11.2 million.

[[Page E418]]

       The street maintenance budget of $69,000 in 1954 has grown 
     to $1.5 million this year.
       Flickinger said one thing he's proud of is talking City 
     Council into approving a policy that set a minimum fund 
     balance of 10 percent. It was passed in 2008. That means 
     while the city has a nearly $18 million budget this year, it 
     won't touch almost $1.8 million of that. It's a sort of 
     built-in rainy day cushion.
       ``They didn't have to do that,'' he said of council's 
     action.
       Fred Maurer has known Flickinger most of his life. They 
     were both born in 1952, a few days apart. They attended St. 
     Augustine's school together.
       Maurer spent more than 21 years as a city councilman.
       ``Ray is very methodical, very thorough, very capable,'' he 
     said. ``He doesn't care to get into the politics [of his 
     elected office], he's more nuts and bolts. He's one of these 
     people who just stays focused on what needs to be done.''


                              Votes needed

       While Flickinger, a Democrat, never faced Republican 
     opposition in the 10 times he had to seek re-election, Maurer 
     laughed that there was one year Flickinger had to work at 
     getting votes. In the 1980s, voters passed a charter 
     amendment requiring the city finance director have a degree 
     in municipal financing and a number of years experience in 
     the field.
       Maurer swears that ``and'' was supposed to be an ``or.'' 
     Flickinger did not have a municipal financing degree. He'd 
     spent about 10 years or so, while in office, working on his 
     bachelor's degree in accounting from Kent State University. 
     But the ballot authors had intended to honor his experience.
       With Flickinger's job hanging in the balance, an amended 
     amendment had to be put on the very next ballot.
       ``I think that's the one and only time Ray actually had to 
     campaign,'' Maurer said. The issue passed.


                            Hitting the road

       When Flickinger retires at the end of this month, his 
     assistant, Jeremy Flaker, will take over. He'll have to run 
     in 2019 if he wants to keep the job. Judge said Barberton 
     will face new financial challenges ahead, and he'll miss the 
     ``level of comfort'' that comes from having Flickinger at his 
     side.
       ``He's lived through tough times before. He's weathered 
     storms and kept on top of them,'' Judge said. ``And he has a 
     lot of institutional knowledge. I'm going to miss his 
     insightfulness, his ideas.''
       ``But I told him I've got his number and I know where he 
     lives,'' Judge quipped.
       That information might not do the mayor a lot of good.
       Flickinger and his longtime girlfriend plan to sell their 
     home and hit the road in a motor home, starting with a stay 
     in Colorado to visit his son, Eric.
       He'll be back here from time to time to visit his two 
     daughters--Amy in Wadsworth and Emily in Grafton--but he's 
     not planning on any permanent residence for the foreseeable 
     future.
       ``We're going to be nomads. I can honestly say I don't know 
     where I'll be living, but Barberton will always be home,'' he 
     said.
       Like his father before him, he loves boating and fishing. 
     But unlike his father, he's getting out at the age of 65, 
     with plenty of time to do more of both.
       ``Like I said,'' he repeated, ``it's just time.''

                          ____________________