and Antonella Marchionni
Controlled and controlling can be two parallel pillars that support the roof of the town hall. Or the two lines can converge to form a pyramid. This is exactly what happened in Pesaro from February 2020 until the end of Matteo Ricci’s legislature. For four years, in fact, the same person, Claudio Chianese, certainly held in good faith multiple roles as general secretary, manager of the administrative, financial and personnel management of the Municipal Legal Office and director of the ‘Institutional Affairs’ office. The Financial Service and therefore the organizational units of “Budget”, “Economics”, “Taxes”, “Fiscal and Financial Management” answered to him. He was also a member of the Management staff and director of the Financial Service managed in association between the Municipality of Pesaro and the Pian del Bruscolo Union of Municipalities. In other words, Claudio Chianese found himself controlling himself. As general secretary of the Municipality, pursuant to art. 97, paragraph 4, of Legislative Decree no. 267/2000, carried out the task of supervising the functions of the managers of the Institution. And it was always him, as head of the financial service, who had in hand the management of the public institution’s cash.
He issued payment orders by affixing on them the opinion of accounting regularity or the certification of financial coverage. On those same payments for which, as municipal secretary, he had previously established regulatory compliance. This was not a transitory situation but a structural one and desired by the mayor Matteo Ricci, perhaps to save money. In fact, it was he himself, with the mayoral decree n. 7 of February 20, 2020, who multiplied the tasks of Claudio Chianese by assigning him financial management and much more. The operation also translated into a significant increase in the salary for the secretary which could reach up to a 50 percent increase in the allowance. “We proceeded – we read in the decree signed by Matteo Ricci – following an in-depth evaluation of the many years of qualified management experience in the economic-financial area, to identify the general secretary Dr. Claudio Chianese for the assignment of the role of head of the financial service of the Municipality of Pesaro”. Nine days before that plenipotentiary investiture, the municipal council had decided (resolution no. 29 of 11/02/2020) to revoke the “selection procedure pursuant to art. 110 paragraph 1 of the TUEL”. There was no longer any need, therefore, to select a financial manager “in consideration of the changed organizational situation of the Institution”. Again in the mayor’s decree no. 7, “the need to proceed to assign the additional functions (of financial service manager, ed.) to the general secretary” is also highlighted. The need “is motivated by the non-existence of the necessary professional skills within the Institution as well as by the unavailability of the position to be assigned, since it is a management whose manager in charge, temporarily absent, retains the right to maintain the position”.
The law allows the general secretary to be transformed into a sector manager but for a very limited time and for emergencies. In this case, the general secretary Chianese, in the financial manager version, allocated funds for murals, maintenance of greenery, sound library, maintenance of hydraulic systems, 3D street art, Palio dei Bracieri, Pizza Rossini, and paid everything especially to ‘Opera Maestra’ without asking himself who this money was going to because there was the mandate of the sector manager. The rest did not matter.