Deliquent taxes and road work budget top topics at Jan. 16 commissioners’ meeting

By Randa Wagner -

The new year always brings dis­cus­sion of bud­gets and change in the county. Mor­row County Com­mis­sion­ers dis­cussed road work esti­mates and County Trea­surer Dan Green’s retire­ment in the fall.

Com­mis­sioner Dick Miller asked Green if he has a ‘tran­si­tion plan’ in place (for the new trea­surer) before his term ends the first Mon­day of Sep­tem­ber, 2013. Green said noth­ing was firm yet, but said he needs to get treasurer-elect Tim Garry lined up with the New Treasurer’s Train­ing,* com­menc­ing in late March or early April.

“The Bud­get Com­mis­sion is the big­ger issue,” Green said. “I’d like to spend some time with him and show him what Mary (Holtrey) and I have done in the past.”

Green said the new trea­surer has to have a bond,** and he needs to get going and get Garry accli­mated and famil­iar with some of the things he’ll be respon­si­ble for.

“I’ve also informed him that those girls out there on the front line are the heart and soul (of the office); they do the every­day things, and they do them right,” Green said of his office staff.

When asked by the com­mis­sion­ers about tax col­lec­tions, Green said taxes are com­ing in, “in amaz­ing amounts of cash. It’s inter­est­ing that peo­ple have that kind of cash.”

“Did you sell any more accounts to the (Tax Ease) com­pany?” asked Com­mis­sioner Tom Harden.

There wasn’t very many in the last group – about 50, Green said. “I told them (Tax Ease) they need to take a harder look at some of these; see if they’ll take some more.”

“What’s the per­cent­age of delin­quency on taxes in the county?” asked Com­mis­sioner Tom Whiston.

“It fluc­tu­ates,” Green said. “It used to be it would jump up to ten per­cent, then drop down to five. Right after col­lec­tions peri­ods is when it’s the high­est. Then we start chip­ping away.”

Green said Tax Ease, LP has made col­lec­tion of taxes bet­ter in the county.

“I always thought my job as trea­surer was to col­lect taxes and not throw peo­ple out of their houses,” Green said.

“It’s not our intent to have them thrown out of their house either,” said Harden. “Our intent is they work with you (Green) and make their pay­ments. We meet fre­quently about the delin­quent tax list, and none of us want any­one to be kicked out of their home.”

Green pointed out that the names that are pub­lished on the delin­quent tax list that is released with the news­pa­per are always first-time delin­quen­cies. Names can­not be listed twice.

“I’d have to put out a phone book (if I included all the names of delin­quent cases),” Green said. “Peo­ple ask me a lot, ‘why aren’t peo­ple pay­ing their taxes? Heck, I don’t know why they aren’t pay­ing their taxes.”

County Engi­neer Randy Bush sub­mit­ted these Force Account Esti­mates for 2013 road and bridge main­te­nance work:

A. Item 409 Seal $13,765.42 per mile

B. Gravel for berming and build­ing bases $12,802.63 per mile

C. Lime­stone for berming, build­ing bases $15.991.06 per mile

D. Ditch­ing and berming $17,311.65 per mile

E. Hand patch­ing $1,732.08 per mile

F. Main­tain­ing Traffic-Bound Roads $1,585.85 per mile

G. Road­side mow­ing $178.57 per mile

H. Snow Removal $2,750.19 per mile

I. Bridge Replace­ment and/or repair Under $100,000.00 per bridge project

J. Cul­vert Replace­ment and/or Repair.. Under $100,000.00 per cul­vert project

K. Road Work Under $30,000.00 per mile

‘Force account’ work is deter­mined by cat­e­gories, the com­mis­sion­ers explained, and there’s a cer­tain amount of money that can be spent with­out going through the bid process. Some work (usu­ally small projects), already have a pre-determined rate, Com­mis­sioner Whis­ton said, so Bush can go ahead and pro­ceed with the project with­out bring­ing it to the com­mis­sion­ers to get the work bid.

“With county employ­ees, you can do work like black­top­ping and guardrail work with­out being encum­bered by bid­ding every­thing,” said Com­mis­sioner Miller. “Hav­ing the right blend of know­ing what your capa­bil­i­ties are and coor­di­nat­ing the activ­ity is what makes a good sys­tem work.”

Reg­u­lar business

John Stine­helfer, IT Spe­cial­ist for Mor­row County offices, received a quote from CDW-G (provider of tech­nol­ogy solu­tions) for $4,009.91 for back-up com­puter pro­tec­tion. The county has been hav­ing issues with com­puter viruses and mal­ware that have dis­abled or inter­rupted some sites.

The fol­low­ing pay-ins were made to the auditor’s office: M. Weiler for health insur­ance pre­mium $561.52; Ket­ter­man res­i­dents for sewer main­te­nance and oper­a­tions $92.18; Ket­ter­man– City of Galion $435.16; Johnsville res­i­dents for sewer debt $39.00; Johnsville sewer main­te­nance and oper­a­tions $442.00; Johnsville sewer debt retire­ment $260.00; Pay­ment from gen­eral fund for local match on Air­port Improve­ment Project $1,398.83; Reim­burse­ment from Devel­op­ment Office for inter­net ser­vice $8.92; Auditor’s Office for doc­u­ment stor­age $1,252.88; Har­mony, Peru and South Bloom­field Town­ships for EMA ser­vices $3,785.72; Johnsville res­i­dents for sewer debt $9.00; Johnsville sewer main­te­nance and oper­a­tions $102.00; Johnsville sewer debt retire­ment $60.00; Vil­lage of Chester­ville for EMA ser­vices $144.13.

*Newly elected county trea­sur­ers must take ini­tial train­ing between Decem­ber 1 and the time they take office, which involves 13 hours of edu­ca­tion approved by the audi­tor of state on gov­ern­men­tal account­ing and port­fo­lio report­ing and com­pli­ance, and 13 hours approved by the trea­surer of state on invest­ments and cash man­age­ment. After a year in office, county trea­sur­ers must take 24 hours of con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion every two cal­en­dar years after the first year in office. The 24 hours of con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion must be com­posed of 12 hours from the trea­surer of state (CPIM) and 12 hours from the audi­tor of state. The train­ing is avail­able through the Cen­ter for Pub­lic Invest­ment Man­age­ment (CPIM).

** O.R.C. 321.02 Bond of county trea­surer — Before enter­ing upon the duties of his office, the county trea­surer shall give bond to the state in such sum as the board of county com­mis­sion­ers directs, with a com­pany autho­rized to con­duct a surety busi­ness in this state as surety, to be approved by the board and con­di­tioned for the pay­ment of all mon­eys which come into his hands for state, county, town­ship, or other purposes.

Posted by Randa Wagner on Jan 23 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.