Commissioners discuss county fiscal future at Wednesday meeting

By Tay­lor Kaser
Com­mis­sioner Tom Whis­ton dis­cussed the bud­get at the com­mis­sion­ers’ March 21 reg­u­lar meet­ing, explain­ing the bud­get is still expected to be fin­ished by April 1.

“We don’t know what we’re going to receive for fund­ing yet,” Com­mis­sioner Olen Jack­son said, respond­ing to a ques­tion from the audi­ence about local gov­ern­ment funding.

Bob Suther­land asked the com­mis­sion­ers what long term advice they have for the bud­get?
Whis­ton answered that cur­rently the county doesn’t have a strong abil­ity to increase revenue.

“The only thing we can do is try to con­trol our costs.” He explained that income from inter­est on county money has all but dried up.

“Last year though, sales tax in the county was up,” said Whiston.

“Local gov­ern­ment, as it is, is not sus­tain­able.” Jack­son explained, “We’re really at the mercy of the Ohio Revised Code.” He noted that the state man­dates require­ments to the county, but doesn’t pro­vide fund­ing to car­ry­out the mandates.

Whis­ton explained the need to con­sol­i­date offices. Cuya­hoga County was cited, as it has changed to a dif­fer­ent form of local gov­ern­ment, a coun­cil form, aid­ing in their efficiency.

Money left to be appro­pri­ated amounts to $163,000, said Clerk Charisse Gru­ber. That money will need to be split between needs at the cour­t­house, jail, and place­ment costs. She stated that other costs, such as insur­ance are near $163,000 already.

Repairs to the gen­er­a­tor at the cor­rec­tional facil­ity were approved. A quote from Buck­eye Power Sales was accepted for $4,163.09.

Steve Hart was reap­pointed to serve on the Mor­row Met­ro­pol­i­tan Hous­ing Author­ity Board for a five year term.

Reap­point­ments of William Kreeger, April Apple­man, John Yust, and Dan Rogers were approved to the Mor­row County Regional Plan­ning Com­mis­sion. Their new terms will be effec­tive until March 25, 2014.

Two appli­ca­tions were approved by the Water & Sewer Improve­ment Pro­gram Loan Review Com­mit­tee and con­struc­tion con­tracts were approved at the com­mis­sion­ers March 26 meet­ing.
The first con­tract, await­ing approval from the EPA, is with Crum & Par­sons Exca­vat­ing, Inc. for con­struc­tion in Har­mony Twp. The sec­ond con­tract is for a job in Con­gress Twp. with J-Neal Con­struc­tion LLC.

The Water & Sewer Improve­ment Pro­gram pro­vides financ­ing for eli­gi­ble prop­erty own­ers for repair­ing or replac­ing exist­ing on-site sewer systems.

Whis­ton cited an arti­cle he read in a dif­fer­ent media stat­ing that the aver­age motorist spends an aver­age of $400 on vehi­cle repairs a year when dri­ving on bad roads.

He cited an addi­tional $10 license plate fee as a way to increase fund­ing for road improve­ments in the county. “Pay $10 and save $400, sounds like a good invest­ment to me.” he reasoned.

Cit­i­zen Donna Carver voiced con­cerns over an injec­tion well on Co. Rd. 9 which she thinks may be leak­ing. She stated that the Ohio Depart­ment of Nat­ural Resources’ web­site is dif­fi­cult to glean infor­ma­tion from and that none of her calls or emails have been answered. She stated she would also like to know how many brine injec­tion wells are in the county.

Posted by Randa Wagner on Mar 28 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.