Funding requests create quandary for county budget

By TAYLOR KASER –

The Mor­row County com­mis­sion­ers addressed ques­tions about the sta­tus of the county’s gen­eral fund bud­get at their April 25 reg­u­lar meeting.

“We’ve got just the rou­tine unfore­seen expenses that are going to be hard to meet,” said Com­mis­sioner Tom Whis­ton. “We’re going to con­tinue to eval­u­ate it, but if we don’t have addi­tional funds come in, we’re always hav­ing requests for things that come up that aren’t budgeted.”

Some of those requests included the Board of Elec­tions — who received $141,000 but want an addi­tional $54,000 for the upcom­ing elec­tion. Com­mon Pleas Court is request­ing $338,000 in addi­tional funds for rou­tine operations.

“It’s going to be dif­fi­cult. I don’t think peo­ple real­ize how hard,” Whis­ton went on to say. “The thing that peo­ple need to under­stand is: based upon what the Audi­tor approved for fund­ing to cer­tify, we’ve allo­cated every penny of that. The fact that when I tell these agen­cies and depart­ments, for exam­ple: When the Judges say we need $338,000, that means we have to take it from some­where. Come this fall, things will get dicey.”

Whis­ton men­tioned a cut in fund­ing that will be taken by Mt. Gilead school.

“Chartwell Green, which is a devel­op­ment in Mt. Gilead, asked for a reduc­tion in their prop­erty taxes retroac­tive four years based on based upon a supreme court deci­sion,” he said. “The Supreme Court has already ruled. They’re look­ing at $160,000 that has already been col­lected and will be taken back from Mt. Gilead schools. About $40,000 for each year (from 2009 — 2012) will be recouped. 80% of that money goes to the schools. 10% will come from the local gov­ern­ment budget.”

Whis­ton also noted there was no dis­clo­sure to the schools, because the deci­sion that was handed down was actu­ally done after the project was approved.

“What was the Supreme Court rul­ing that lets them do that?” asked a meet­ing attendee.

“The basis of the of the cash value — as opposed to the appraised value,” Whis­ton explained. “In other words, they’re say­ing that if they went to the open mar­ket, they could only get ‘this much’ for it, as opposed to if Tom wanted to buy it, what it’s actu­ally worth. Because they have the tax credit restraints that limit their abil­ity to set the rents. So because of that, they’re say­ing that encum­bers their abil­ity to mar­ket that at a fair price. There­fore, we have to use what 4.2 1.6 assess­ment — which was not explained at the time, it’s sub­si­dized rent.”

Chartwell is owned by Woda out of West­er­ville, and they own sim­i­lar neigh­bor­hoods across the country.

“We can’t do any­thing about it, but I am going to find out how we cor­rect it,” Whis­ton said, “because that shouldn’t hap­pen to a local com­mu­nity. We’re sub­jected after the fact by the Supreme Court that they don’t have to do that, whereas every­body else has to pay their taxes. This is some­thing that very much ben­e­fits one set of peo­ple while tak­ing it from every­body, which I don’t like that concept.”

Into­her busi­ness, a con­tract between the Mor­row County Child Sup­port Enforce­ment Agency and Court of Com­mon Pleas was accepted. Reim­burse­ment is required by the state. By sub­mit­ting the proper paper­work, the court can receive up to $35,195.83 in reim­burse­ment for their work.

A draw down request from the Com­mu­nity Hous­ing Improve­ment Pro­gram was accepted for a pri­vate home rehabilitation.

The appli­ca­tion of brine upon pri­vate and county roads was dis­cussed at the com­mis­sion­ers April 30 meet­ing. A pub­lic hear­ing to con­sider two appli­ca­tions sub­mit­ted by Wal­ter and Karen Fish­burn for using brine for ice and dust con­trol is set for May 16 at 9:30 a.m. Yearly brine per­mits are issued by the state, the county can only sub­mit its rec­om­men­da­tion or dis­ap­proval of the appli­ca­tion. The final deci­sion, as well as per­mit fees, go to The Ohio Depart­ment of Nat­ural Resources, said Com­mis­sioner Tom Harden.

Also dis­cussed was how often the brine will be spread and where the brine comes from. Harden said that the brine used is from local wells, not from out of state. The appli­ca­tion says that the brine will be used as needed, depend­ing on weather. The appli­ca­tion out­lines places and times that brine may not be applied. It is not to be applied to veg­e­ta­tion or, “Within 12 feet of struc­tures cross­ing bod­ies of water or cross­ing drainage ditches.”

Com­mis­sioner Olen Jack­son com­mented that appli­ca­tion is mon­i­tored by neigh­bors, and said that he has only received one com­plaint con­nected to this use of brine dur­ing his tenor of commissioner.

“My con­cern is that ODNR, they take money — but how often do they come out to check where it’s going?” Jack­son asked. “Unless some­one calls and reg­is­ters a com­plaint, I doubt seri­ously they ever check.”

Jack­son also gave updates for the county’s Well­ness Pro­gram. He dis­cussed pos­i­tive effects that the pro­gram is hav­ing for county employ­ees. Last week, coor­di­na­tors of the county’s well­ness pro­gram, includ­ing Pat Davies, were invited to speak at the County Com­mis­sion­ers of Ohio Association’s Well­ness meet­ing in Columbus.

The com­mis­sion­ers accepted the res­ig­na­tion of Mar­i­lyn Smith from the Mor­row County Hos­pi­tal Board of Trustees. Approval to sell a 2002 Ford Crown Vic­to­ria was given.

Cer­ti­fied monies were appro­pri­ated to the Com­mu­nity Ser­vice Build­ing for Interest/Bond Retire­ment and repairs and main­te­nance totalling $12,090.

May is being rec­og­nized as Com­mu­nity Action Month. Active for over 45 years in the county, Com­mu­nity Action aids in child devel­op­ment, emer­gency ser­vices, and senior pro­gram­ming among other duties.

Dar­lene McEl­roy and Roger Smith were reap­pointed to Mor­row County Regional Plan­ning Commission.

Posted by Randa Wagner on May 2 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.