CANTON ‒ The former CEO of the Stark Area Regional Transit Authority, who abruptly departed in mid-August, is getting a six-month severance package worth about $100,000.
SARTA’s board unimously approved the deal for Kirt Conrad during its Sept. 18 meeting.
Board President Ronald Macala Conrad’s employment contract required he get six months of pay and benefits if he was dismissed.
In return, Conrad will drop any legal claims against SARTA and not work for another public transit agency in Stark County or an adjoining county for six months.
Macala said SARTA will pay Conrad his salary and benefits for the next six months from his official last day of Aug. 18. The board president estimated the cost will total about $99,000.
The former CEO has also agreed to assist SARTA with its applications for grants submitted while he was CEO. Conrad has also agreed to withdraw his public-record requests for thousands of SARTA documents and not enter SARTA’s offices.
Conrad submitted notice to the board that he was resigning effective August 2026. The board told him he would have to leave in August 2025.
“We don’t want him on any SARTA site whether it’s here or Gateway or Belden Village or Massillon or Alliance,” Macala said.
“It’s time to move on. It just is. Kirt needs to find his own way going forward, and we have to take care of our business. The relationship, it just became very difficult over the last couple of years.”
Macala said Conrad or his attorney had threatened to file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. It’s not clear what Conrad would have alleged.
When asked what he meant by difficult, Macala said, “Perhaps difficult is the wrong term. He and I and the board began to disagree on some fundamental concepts with SARTA. We started questioning the financial data we were getting. That became troublesome.”
Macala said the independent auditor SARTA hired to look at SARTA’s finances did not find signs of financial crisis as depicted by Conrad, who cited a drop in sales tax revenue as cause to drastically cut ProLine paratransit service for people with disabilities.
“In this business, you rely on things like the sales tax. It goes up, that goes down, it goes up, it goes down. And you’ve got to live with that. … Just because it went down for a month doesn’t mean you’re in the midst of a financial crisis.”
When asked if Conrad had overstated the financial challenges, Macala said, “You’d have to ask him that. In our estimation, we didn’t believe we were getting credible financial information (in 2025).”
The SARTA board appointed Ralph Lee, the former chief of human resources for Kenan Advantage Group, to serve as SARTA’s interim CEO.
Macala and Lee said they’re working on a plan to possibly gradually recall some of the workers who were laid off and see if they can restore any of the lost ProLine service.
SARTA union workers get new deal
SARTA’s board also unanimously approved wage increases over three years for its union employees.
The transit agency’s bus operators, mechanics and vehicle service staff will get raises of 4% retroactive to Aug. 1, a raise of 3% the following Aug. 1 and a raise of 3% on Aug. 1, 2027, according to Macala.
He said the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 8 Local 1880 ratified the agreement, which is not yet been formalized into writing. The local had about 160 members as of early January.
Macala did not have an estimate for how much the raises would cost SARTA, which is expected to seek a 10-year renewal of its 0.25% Stark County sales tax in the May primary.
Messages seeking comment were left after hours for AFSCME Council 8’s Akron office, Conrad and his Akron-based attorney Edmund Sawan.
Macala said the new agreement set new health insurance premium rates for employees covering themselves and a spouse and employees with family coverage. Under the old agreement, every employee paid the same premium no matter how many people were covered. He said the change might slightly increase premium costs for some employees.
SARTA and Local 1880 agreed in early January to a three-year contract with a $750 signing bonus for each employee, no raises then but an agreement to reopen salary negotiations in August. The two sides reached a tentative agreement the week before the board’s vote. SARTA laid off about 15 employees early in 2025 and instituted a pay freeze.
Reach Robert at robert.wang@cantonrep.com.
This article originally appeared on The Repository: SARTA board approves $100K severance deal with former CEO, new union contract for workers
Reporting by Robert Wang, Canton Repository / The Repository
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