Budget Commission Tables Montville Township’s Request to Establish Capital Project Reserve Funds
Budget Commission Regular Meeting – June 17, 2024
Meeting Details: The Geauga County Budget Commission met in Regular Session on Monday, June 17, 2024 at 10:00 am in the Auditor's Conference Room, 215 Main Street, Chardon, Ohio. This meeting was in person with a virtual option via MS Teams.
Meeting Attendance: Deputy Treasurer Donna Borsi (substituting for Treasurer Chris Hitchcock), Auditor Chuck Walder, and Prosecutor Jim Flaiz (arriving at 10:15am).
Staff Attendance: Chief Deputy Auditor Ron Leyde, Deputy Auditors Tammy Most and Kristen Sinatra, and Fiscal Office Manager Pam McMahan.
County Staff: Geauga County Budget and Finance Manager Adrian Gorton (virtual).
Members of the Public: This LWV Geauga Observer (virtual).
The meeting was called to order at 10:05 am.
Minutes: Minutes from the Regular Meeting on June 3, 2024 were approved and are available here.
The following Revenue Certifications were approved:
-
Bainbridge Township - Amendment #6. $4,230,348.65 in the general fund, $19,308,668.24 in special revenue funds, $2,015,383.34 in debt service funds, $2,497,440.76 in capital project funds, and $539.02 in fiduciary funds for a total of $28,052,380.01. Appropriations do not exceed revenue.
Bainbridge’s amendment certified an increase in the EPA special revenue fund of $111,191.40.
-
South Russell Village - Amendment #6. $1,884,821.81 in the general fund, $7,950,074.11 in special revenue funds, $1,607,330.46 in capital project funds, and $210,299.54 in fiduciary funds for a total of $11,652,525.92.
South Russell Village’s amendment reflected a transfer from the income tax fund to the general
fund of $10,824 and a net increase in special revenue funds of $183,000.
The following Revenue Certification was tabled:
-
Montville Township - Amendment #4. $382,466.50 in the general fund, $1,527,491.04 in special revenue funds, $205,000.00 in capital project funds, and $215.65 in fiduciary funds for a total of $2,115,173.19.
Montville’s amendment sought to establish two capital project reserve funds totalling $205,000. The first is a general fund reserve fund for improvements and updates for various buildings with a $40,000 contribution this year and a maximum funding of $500,000 over 10 years. The second is a road reserve fund in the amount of $165,000.
Mr. Walder asked if Montville did a reserve study to determine the fund amounts. He was informed by his staff that Montville conducted this study internally. Mr. Walder said that the engineer would have been involved in the road reserve fund determination, so he wasn’t “overly concerned” about this fund. However, he questioned “how did they do the math?” regarding the general fund reserve fund. Mr. Walder noted that one of the items listed in the general fund reserve study is mulch, which he stated was not a capital project reserve item. He also observed that this study included a dry hydrant for a park, which he indicated would usually be paid for by fire funds. Mr. Walder stated that “This is an anomaly in that they're reserving this without a third party independent study being done. It's self study, which I'm not totally against, but I think we need to make sure that there's common sense.”
There was discussion about whether or not the revenue could be certified while approval of the reserve study was tabled until more information could be gathered. Mr. Flaiz arrived during this discussion at 10:15 am, at which point Mr. Walder updated him about the matter at hand.
Mr. Flaiz questioned how they could approve the revenue certification while at the same time not allowing Montville to set up the reserve funds. Mr. Walder noted that there was no immediate need for this action, so he proposed tabling the entire matter. He asked his staff to reach out to Montville with the following options: they can either discuss the matter in detail at their budget hearing in August, or they can provide more detailed information before then and resubmit the amendment.
The Budget Commissioners all voted in favor of tabling Montville’s amendment.
Other Business:
Auditor’s Office staff presented the Budget Commissioners with a draft schedule for the Budget Hearings that will take place on August 19 and 20 in the Auditor’s Appraisal Conference Room. This draft had unique hearing times for each entity. Mr. Flaiz noted that this approach required them to spend time waiting around between hearings in the past. Mr. Walder proposed doing a “cattle call” approach, with several groups of entities being given the same start time over the course of the hearings. He said that this would enable the Budget Commission to easily move from one hearing to the next without having to waste time waiting for a particular start time.
There was discussion about what the different group start times would be across the two days of the Budget Hearings in order to maximize the Budget Commissioners’ efficiency while minimizing the amount of time any entity might spend waiting for their hearing. Ultimately, it was decided that there would be three entity groups on August 19 with three separate start times of 9:00 am, 10:00 am, and 1:15 pm, and on August 20 there will be two entity groups with separate start times of 9:00 am and 9:30 am. Auditor’s Office staff will work to finalize the Budget Hearing schedule so it can be distributed.
Public Comment:
-
This Observer asked for: 1) a copy of the Budget Hearing schedule when it becomes available, 2) clarification about the location where the Budget Hearings would take place (see above), and 3) a copy of the approved and tabled revenue certifications from this meeting.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:29 am.
Next Meeting: Special Meeting for 2024 Local School Districts’ Year-End Financials and Regular Business on Thursday, June 27 at 2:00 pm in the Auditor’s Conference Room at 215 Main Street, Chardon, Ohio.
Observer: Sarah McGlone
Editor/Reviewer: Gail Roussey
Submitted: 6/18/24
The League of Women Voters of Geauga is a 501(c)(3) nonpartisan political organization that encourages informed and active participation in government, works to increase understanding of major public policy issues, and influences public policy through education and advocacy. They do not support or oppose individual candidates or parties. Learn more about the LWVG at www.lwvgeauga.org.