CINCINNATI — Iris Roley, a consultant for the City of Cincinnati, hired her two sons as subcontractors to work with young people after school at Government Square, and to help with summer safety — duties that could earn them six figures for just over 14 months of part-time work, city documents state.
Each of her two sons estimated they would earn at least $130,000 for work from June 1, 2025, to mid-August 2026, according to subcontractor approval request forms obtained by the WCPO 9 I-Team through a public records request to the city.
“I think it is well above what your average city employee earns,” said Todd Zinser, a former Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Commerce who spent his career investigating fraud and waste before retiring and becoming a citizen watchdog.
WATCH: What the WCPO 9 I-Team learned about how much Iris Roley's two sons will earn
Zinser reviewed Roley’s contracts and the subcontractor approval request forms. Roley, her sons and other subcontractors signed the forms in late January and February, and they were also signed on behalf of Assistant City Manager John Brazina.
“I wish that the city was more aware of how their actions in this contract look to the public,” Zinser said.
Roley has been a community activist for more than 25 years. The city hired her as a consultant in 2022 to advise on issues related to the Collaborative Agreement. Her role eventually expanded to oversee the Government Square Community Care initiative to address youth violence at transit centers after school.
Many city leaders praised her work for bringing food, personal care products and a safe space to young people. Last year, the program was a finalist for a Goldstein Award for excellence in problem-oriented policing.
Others question how much she is being paid and the effectiveness of her work, especially after shootings on Fountain Square in October 2025 led Mayor Aftab Pureval to station the Cincinnati Police Civil Disturbance Response Team and SWAT at Fountain Square and Government Square.
The Fraternal Order of Police also accused Roley of harassing several on-duty police officers last August and called for her firing.
Despite the criticism, the scope of Roley’s work has continued to expand. She is part of the Summer in Cincy violence reduction plan for the second year, offering youth curfew support, monitoring criminal hotspots and assisting during special events this summer.
“I’m going to assume that Ms. Roley will have that contract for as long as she wants it,” Zinser said. “It really does look like a person-centered contract, and I don’t think the city would do the same thing for any other person.”
Closing a $29.5 city budget deficit
The I-Team has been examining the city’s financial ties to Roley and her family since last year.
In September, the I-Team reported that Roley hired her son, Rechah Showes, who has a criminal history, to work with young people on Government Square, a part-time job paying $4,400 a month.
The I-Team obtained records showing the city spent more than $1,300 on clothing for Government Square workers purchased from a company registered to Roley's husband.
In December, the I-Team reported that Roley got a new contract worth $664,300 that was signed by City Manager Sheryl Long two days after the election on Nov. 6 for work that was performed months earlier.
“At the end of the day, this is patronage,” Steve Goodin, a former city council member and head of the Charter Committee of Greater Cincinnati, an independent political organization dedicated to good government, said.
Roley declined a one-on-one interview. But she attended a WCPO Finding Solutions conversation about city violence on May 20.
"I’ve not done anything wrong other than have the audacity to step in where other adults did not," Roley said at the event. "We need to have balance here when it comes from our media partners to show the goodness."
"Channel 9 needs to take a look at itself," Roley said at the event. "I won’t talk about Paula Christian(son) Murphy right now because we’ve all seen it. And she’s going to do another story about the work on Government Square, not telling the truth about it, or what we’ve done, or the children’s lives that we have changed."
The city’s nepotism rules do not apply to Roley, because she is an independent contractor. But Goodin and Zinser questioned the optics of that.
“She is operating as if she were a full-time city employee. She has an office at City Hall. However, they’ve structured this to call her an independent contractor in a clear effort to exempt her from the nepotism laws and other ethics laws that the state has, which would apply to a full-time employee,” Goodin said. “It is absolutely out of the ordinary, and out of the norms that have been established at City Hall, and it really flouts the (Cincinnati) Charter.”
The total amount of Roley’s contracts with the city since 2022 tops $1.2 million.
Long signed the city’s current contract with Roley on Election Day, Nov. 4, 2025, earmarking $555,700 to the Cincinnati Collaboration Foundation through mid-August of this year, with a renewal term through August 2027.
“That would be three police officers with benefits, almost,” Goodin said in a May 11 interview. “Potentially, an entire summer jobs program could be administered with half a million dollars ... it could go toward reducing our 29 million dollar budget deficit that we are facing right now.”
The city had a projected $29.5 million operating budget deficit. In March, city officials asked departments to prepare for potential cuts of 5%, which police said could lead to fewer proactive neighborhood patrols and slower response times.
On May 22, city leaders unveiled a recommended budget that aimed to close that deficit, largely by leaving vacant city positions unfilled and delaying the next Cincinnati Fire Department recruit class until fall 2027.
'The city waived strict compliance with the contract.'
Roley reports directly to City Manager Sheryl Long, who declined an interview.
The I-Team reviewed the waivers that city department heads submitted before finalizing sole-source professional service contracts in 2025 and found only one contractor, Roley, who reported directly to Long's office.
"I’ve never seen an independent contractor who can only talk to or report to the city manager," Goodin said.
Roley's subcontractors are required to submit approval request forms to the city before they begin work.
“Contractor agrees that none of the work or services covered by this agreement shall be subcontracted without the prior written approval of the city … and must be submitted and approved before subcontractors are authorized to begin work,” according to Roley’s newest contract, signed by Long on Nov. 4.
The I-Team made a public records request for those subcontractor forms on Jan. 2, and the city released records two months later in March.
These forms were signed and dated by Roley’s subcontractors in late January and February, several weeks after the I-Team’s request, and roughly three months after her November contract was signed.
“That again points to how sloppy the whole contracting process seems to have been,” Zinser said. “From an auditor’s perspective, that form is very, very problematic.”
The I-Team asked the city whether the late submission of these subcontractor forms violated Roley’s contract.
“In this case, Ms. Roley did not understand that ‘subcontractors’ included independent contractors, and she subsequently complied once we brought that to her attention. Understanding the confusion, the city waived strict compliance with the contract,” city spokesperson Mollie Lair wrote in an email.
These forms detail how much Roley’s subcontractors estimate to be paid.
Roley’s son, Rechah Showes, wrote that his estimated subcontract amount was $94,282 for community care and Summer in Cincy monitoring work, as detailed in Roley's contract embedded below, from June 1 to Oct. 31, 2025, and $44,000 for monitor and community engagement work from Nov. 1, 2025, to Aug. 15, 2026. The total: $138,282 for just over 14 months of part-time work, according to the forms he signed on Jan. 29 and Feb. 12, 2026.
Roley’s second son, who is listed as both Gymii and J.R. Roley on the subcontractor forms, wrote that his estimated subcontract amount was $94,282 for community care and Summer in Cincy monitoring work from June 1 to Oct. 31, 2025, and $36,052 for project manager work from Nov. 1, 2025, to Aug. 16, 2026. That totaled $130,334 for just over 14 months of part-time work, according to the forms he signed on Jan. 30 and Feb. 12, 2026.
“There are skilled nurses who are working 50-hour weeks who aren’t making that kind of money in this community,” Goodin said. “It’s really outrageous, and the fact that they are tax dollars too makes it in my mind considerably worse.”
A city spokesperson said the subcontractor forms do not represent actual city payments.
“The subcontractor approval forms were imprecisely completed, listing the total possible amount for each monitor to cover all bases, if it was not possible to determine at the time how many actual hours each individual monitor may be called upon to work. The Department of Economic Inclusion is working with the vendor to properly amend those. Nonetheless, the City’s payments are limited to the actual invoiced amounts as supported by any documentation the City may request. Those payments also cannot exceed the budget for each contract, regardless of what amounts are listed on the subcontractor approval forms,” Lair wrote in an email.
The I-Team also asked how much the city had paid Roley’s two sons since June 1, 2025. Lair explained why she did not answer that question.
“The City pays the invoices for work outlined in the contracts with Ms. Roley. It does not individually pay subcontractors or employees of vendors. We would not maintain that information,” Lair said.
Very few city employees earn at least $130,000 annually for full-time work. A review of city employment data shows just over 6% of employees earn that high a salary, and most are division managers, senior solicitors, fire captains or police lieutenants.
Even Mayor Aftab Pureval makes less, earning just over $121,000 a year. The city charter sets his salary.
“I’d like to see somebody down there grow a backbone, whether it be the city manager or the mayor, and I’d like to see that contract torn up,” Goodin said. “I’ve yet to see any indication that this has prevented any kind of violence anywhere … you’re just kind of taking their word for it, I guess.”
READ Iris Roley's latest contract with the City of Cincinnati and an accompanying amendment here:
