Budget Commission Tables Certification of Geauga County’s 2025 Beginning Balances
Budget Commission Meeting – January 6, 2025
Meeting Details: The Geauga County Budget Commission met in Regular Session on Monday, January 6, 2025 at 10:00 am in the Auditor's Conference Room, 215 Main Street, Chardon, Ohio. The meeting was in person with a virtual attendance option via MS Teams.
Meeting Attendance: Prosecutor Jim Flaiz, Treasurer Chris Hitchcock, and Automatic Data Processing Chief Deputy Administrator Frank Antenucci (substituting for Auditor Chuck Walder, who attended virtually).
Staff Attendance: Chief Deputy Auditor Ron Leyde, Deputy Auditors Tammy Most and Kristen Sinatra, and Chief Operations Officer Pam McMahan.
County Staff: 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 Special Meeting on December 30, 2024 were approved by Mr. Hitchcock and
Mr. Flaiz. Mr. Antenucci abstained because he was not present at the December 30, 2024 meeting. The
minutes are available here.
The following Revenue Certifications were approved:
Reviewer Note: An explanation of the different types of funds in revenue certifications can be found here.
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Newbury Township - Amendment #6. $1,463,380.95 in the general fund, $5,623,615.75 in special revenue funds, $139,732.00 in debt service funds, $1,301,254.34 in capital project funds, and $4,500.00 in special assessment funds for a total of $8,532,483.04.
Newbury’s amendment reflected increases in debt services funds and capital projects funds.
Observer Note: The Budget Commission requests that all entities provide beginning balances for all
funds within 90 days of the start of the year. The following are certifications of the 2025 beginning balances for each entity below:
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Geauga Trumbull Solid Waste - Amendment #1. $5,520,131.48 in the general fund only for a total of $5,520,131.48.
This amendment certified Geauga Trumbull Solid Waste’s beginning balance for 2025.
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Geauga Public Health - Amendment #1. $2,440,546.83 in the general fund and $5,127,154.97 inspecial revenue funds for a total of $7,567,701.80.
This amendment certified Geauga Public Health’s beginning balances for 2025.
The following Revenue Certification was tabled:
Observer Note: Since this Revenue Certification was tabled, no approved certificate exists so exact fund amounts are unavailable.
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Geauga County - It was noted that the cash carryover from the original revenue certification was increased by over $37 million, with over $22 million of that amount being in the general fund. Mr. Antenucci opined that this was “certainly positive news for any departments, offices and agencies that did not get all their general fund money last year.”
Mr. Walder asked if the carryover balances were correct because he said that he had received a text that morning saying there was an issue. Ms. Sinatra clarified that the carryover information was from New World software and was not submitted to the Budget Commission by Mr. Gorton. Mr. Antenucci asked if the carryover amounts were the ones Mr. Walder had signed off on Thursday, January 2. It was discovered that the amount of one of the capital projects funds had changed since then. Mr. Walder inquired about why a new certification wasn’t created to reflect this change, and Mr. Antenucci said there had been a problem with New World posting a transaction, which is still in process. Mr. Walder stated “I'm not going to sign any documents until people swear that they're true and correct, because I'm relying on people to give me good data, and when this data changes after I sign documents, re-signing them is not only an embarrassment, it makes it virtually impossible for me to trust the items that I'm being presented with.” He expressed displeasure that no one told him about this issue before this morning.
Mr. Flaiz asked if the Budget Commission has to certify the County’s beginning balances in order for the County to spend money. Ms. Sinatra explained that the County still has all the revenue from its original certificate to spend and the purpose of certifying the balances at the start of the year is to “true it up” (update the balances to make them more accurate). Ultimately, the Budget Commissioners voted to table the certification of the County’s 2025 beginning balances until the next meeting so that the certificate with corrected balances could be signed off on by the Auditor beforehand. Observer Note: Later in the meeting, Mr. Gorton stated that he had reached out to Chief Compliance Officer Kate Jacob that morning about the ADP contract services fund (an internal service fund) because “...the carryover encumbrances exceeded the cash balance of the fund, which made the January 1 unencumbered balance a negative…. So I think that one will probably need to be fixed somehow as well.” Therefore, it appears that multiple County fund balances will require correcting before the next Budget Commission meeting.
Discussion on Potential Special Meeting:
Ms. Sinatra noted that the next Budget Commission meeting was not until January 23 and inquired as to whether or not a special meeting would be needed before then. Mr. Gorton’s opinion on this was sought, and after some consideration he decided that the County would not require revenue certification before January 23. Therefore, no additional Budget Commission meetings were scheduled.
Public Comment:
This observer requested a copy of all documents from this meeting, which were provided via email on January 7, 2025.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:26 am.
Next Meeting: Due to the Martin Luther King Day holiday, the next meeting will be a Special Meeting on Thursday, January 23, 2025 at 10:00 am in the Auditor's Conference Room, 215 Main Street, Chardon, Ohio.
Observer: Sarah McGlone
Editor: Anne Ondrey
Reviewer: Gail Roussey
Submitted: 01/07/2025
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