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Budget Commission

LWV Geauga Observer Corps

Budget Commission Upholds Its Decision to Reduce Geauga Park District’s

2022 Revenue by Approximately $1.9 Million

Budget Commission Meeting – September 29, 2025

Meeting Details: The Geauga County Budget Commission met in Special Session on Monday, September 29, 2025 at 10:00 am in the Auditor's Appraisal Conference Room, 231 Main Street, Chardon, Ohio. The meeting was in person with a virtual attendance option via MS Teams. To attend Budget Commission meetings virtually via MS Teams, email an invitation request to Pam McMahan at PMcMahan@geauga.oh.gov.

Meeting Attendance: Prosecutor Jim Flaiz, Auditor Chuck Walder, and Chief Deputy Treasurer Caroline Mansfield (substituting for Treasurer Chris Hitchcock).

Staff Attendance: Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Kristen Rine, Deputy Auditor Kristen Sinatra, ADP (Automatic Data Processing) Chief Deputy Administrator Frank Antenucci, Chief Compliance Officer & Administrator Kate Jacob (virtual), Chief Operations Officer Pam McMahan, and ADP Staff Member Akshay Raikar.

County Staff: Budget and Finance Manager Adrian Gorton (virtual).

Members of the Public: This LWV Geauga Observer.

The meeting was called to order at 10:00 am.

Minutes: Minutes from the Regular Meeting on September 15, 2025 were approved. These minutes are available here.

Agenda Change: The Budget Commissioners elected to change the order of items considered on the agenda in order to allow personnel from Geauga Park District (GPD) to be present for its 2022 Budget Hearing (see below) if they were running late for some reason. No one was present from GPD, and its Budget Hearing was originally first on the agenda. The Budget Commissioners moved this item to last on the agenda.

2026 Rate Resolutions:

The Budget Commissioners unanimously voted to approve the 2026 rate resolutions for the villages, townships, special districts, libraries, and the school districts as submitted for those entities who submitted them. It was noted that rate resolutions were not received from Geauga County, Hambden Township, and Middlefield Township. Ms. Sinatra stated that the County has its rate resolution on its agenda for the County Commissioners meeting the following day (September 30), and Hambden will have its rate resolution on the agenda for its October 1 Township Trustees meeting. She said they haven’t heard back from Middlefield Township about its rate resolution, and she will reach out to their Fiscal Officer again today. Mr. Walder said that the Budget Commissioners can consider the late rate resolutions at their Regular Meeting on October 6. Observer Note: Entities are required to certify their rate resolutions on or before October 1. The actual tax rates themselves will not be available until they are provided by the State, which is likely to happen in early 2026. The Budget Commission vote simply certifies that these entities turned in the necessary materials for the rates to be calculated by the State.

The following Revenue Certification was approved:

Reviewer Note: An explanation of the different types of funds in revenue certifications can be found

here.

Chester Township - Amendment #3. $3,520,283.16 in the general fund, $12,317,635.75 in special revenue funds, $560,768.00 in capital project funds, and $13,486.55 in special assessment funds for a total of $16,412,173.46.

Chester’s amendment certified a $14,000 increase in the cemetery special revenue fund.

Geauga Public Health (GPH) Fund Balance Adjustments:

Numerous fund balance adjustments were submitted by GPH (though no actual numbers were shared during the meeting). Mr. Walder said he appreciated the effort of GPH’s new Fiscal Officer Katie Taylor in attempting to “... clean up historical problems that we’ve had with the health district.” However, he said he had two problems with the GPH submission: it was submitted without enough time for proper vetting by Budget Commission staff and “... on a lot of the forms, they've not been executed by the proper authority.” Observer Note: At the Budget Commission meeting on October 6, 2025, it was clarified that “proper authority” refers to original signatures from the GPH Board. Mr. Walder praised Ms. Taylor, saying she was doing this “for the right reasons” and is “trying to be very efficient and get it done quickly, but this is one time where I think slower is better.” The Budget Commissioners voted unanimously to table GPH’s fund balance adjustments.

Geauga Park District’s 2022 Tax Budget Hearing:

Having no further business, the Budget Commission returned to the Geauga Park District (GPD) 2022 Tax Budget Hearing. No GPD personnel were present.

Scheduling of the Hearing: Mr. Flaiz provided background information on how this hearing was scheduled. He said that the Tenth District Court of Appeals decision was received electronically by the GPD attorneys on September 4, 2025. Observer Note: This decision affirmed the October 16, 2024 Ohio Board of Tax Appeals decision granting Geauga Park District the right to resubmit its 2022 tax budget to be considered in a continued hearing before the Budget Commission. He noted that GPD had a board meeting on September 15 at which GPD’s legal counsel was present. Mr. Flaiz said that he didn’t know why this matter was not discussed by the GPD board at that time. Observer Note: The LWVG Observer Report on the September 15, 2025 GPD meeting is available here. He stated that the Budget Commission did discuss this issue at their last meeting; Ms. Rine pointed out that coincidentally this meeting also occurred on September 15. Observer Note: The LWVG Observer Report on the September 15, 2025 Budget Commission meeting is available here. He explained that “if we were going to do anything differently than what we did back in 2022, we would need to impact their collection rate, which is due October 1.”

Ms. Rine said that the Budget Commission initially set the Geauga Park District’s 2022 Tax Budget Hearing for September 19, 2025, but GPD’s Executive Director John Oros and Fiscal Officer Dawn Sweeney were unavailable then. Mr. Flaiz said that Mr. Oros indicated that he was on vacation the following week but would return on Sunday, September 28, so the GPD Budget Hearing was rescheduled for September 29 (the present meeting). Mr. Oros indicated that the GPD board would not meet to take the matter up until its regular monthly board meeting on October 20. Mr. Flaiz suggested that the GPD could hold a special meeting sooner, and there was correspondence back and forth about that. Ms. Rine said communication from GPD continued to indicate that the board would not discuss it until October 20. Mr. Walder said that, based on his reading of the communications from GPD, “they seem to have the impression that it's like an open-ended ordeal, that they can, at any time- because there was no time indicated, that means forever - they could submit or not submit at their choice a new budget.” Mr. Walder said his position was that, since the Tenth District’s decision was received prior to the October 1 deadline for tax rates, “we should then jump into that pattern. We should immediately try to satisfy the pattern (i.e., have the hearing in advance of the deadline in order to adjust the tax rate if necessary).” Mr. Flaiz and Ms. Rine agreed that if the Budget Commission waits until after October 20 to hold the 2022 GPD Tax Budget Hearing, they would not be able to collect any tax money that might be due to GPD in 2026 as a result of the hearing.

Mr. Walder opined that “...clearly the BTA (Board of Tax Appeals) doesn't understand the budget cycle any better than perhaps the park… they remanded with no guardrails.” He went on to say that the BTA “... is supposed to be a governing body and the oversight, (but the BTA is) not understanding the process that they're overseeing. And they've made a decision to a group (GPD) that is interpreting it the way they've written it, and unfortunately, it's written without any regard to the ORC (Ohio Revised Code), where there are legitimate deadlines that have to be met.”

Mr. Flaiz said he felt that the Budget Commission had “bent over backwards to schedule this meeting,” going so far as to communicate to GPD that they would meet at any time on or before October 1. He expressed the opinion that the Budget Commission should go ahead and conduct the hearing. Mr. Walder said he was ok with that. Mr. Flaiz said “when we normally have these hearings, we're trying to predict the future, and we're trying to look at revenue and expenses based upon history and look at that moving forward. We now have the benefit to know what the park district received in revenue and what they spent for the last four years.” He compared the situation to the Back to the Future movies: “We’re going in a time machine. We're going in the DeLorean, but we've got the Gray Sports Almanac.”

At this point, the hearing for GPD’s 2022 tax budget was officially opened.

The Hearing Itself: Mr. Walder asked Ms. Sinatra if the budget numbers they were evaluating were the original numbers from GPD or the corrected values. Ms. Sinatra said they were the corrected numbers. Mr. Walder reminded everyone that some of GPD’s originally submitted budget numbers were erroneous, and the corrected numbers fixed the calculation errors that were present in the original GPD submission. There was further discussion about what constituted the corrected numbers. It was decided that they should consider the estimated revenue originally requested by GPD after correcting the calculation errors, adding back in the approximately $1.9 million in revenue that was taken away by the Budget Commission at the original hearing in August 2021.

After some calculations, the 2022 Tax Budget Numbers requested by GPD were stated to be as follows:

Estimated 1/1/2022 Unencumbered General Fund Cash Balance: $2,752,851
Estimated General Fund Revenue: $6,872,860
Estimated General Fund Expenses: $7,387,311
Estimated 12/31/22 General Fund Cash Balance: $2,238,400

Estimated 1/1/2022 Unencumbered Land Improvement Fund Cash Balance: $ 981,978
Estimated Land Improvement Fund Revenue: $ 650,000
Estimated Land Improvement Fund Expenses: $ 280,000
Estimated 12/31/22 Land Improvement Fund Cash Balance: $1,351,978

Estimated 1/1/2022 Unencumbered Retirement Reserve Fund Cash Balance: $ 75,492
Estimated Retirement Reserve Fund Revenue: $ 500
Estimated Retirement Reserve Fund Expenses: $ 0
Estimated 12/31/22 Retirement Reserve Fund Cash Balance: $ 75,922

Estimated 1/1/2022 Unencumbered Capital Reserve Fund Cash Balance: $ 496,885
Estimated Capital Reserve Fund Revenue: $ 6,500
Estimated Capital Reserve Fund Expenses: $ 305,000
Estimated 12/31/22 Capital Reserve Fund Cash Balance: $ 198,385

Estimated 1/1/2022 Unencumbered K-9 Fund Cash Balance: $ 193
Estimated K-9 Fund Revenue: $ 1,500
Estimated K-9 Fund Expenses: $ 1,534
Estimated 12/31/22 K-9 Fund Cash Balance: $ 159

Ms. Sinatra stated that GPD’s total millage in 2022 was 2.0 mills after adding up its three levies

(0.7 mill, 0.9 mill, and 0.4 mills). She noted that this millage does reflect the reduction imposed by the Budget Commission at the original hearing in August 2021, wherein its 1.0 mill levy was reduced to 0.4 mill.

Mr. Flaiz noted that GPD’s estimated 2022 beginning cash balance in the general fund was $2,752,851 and that estimated and actual balances commonly differ from each other across the entities that the Budget Commission oversees, sometimes “wildly.” He then asked what GPD’s actual January 1, 2022 general fund cash balance turned out to be. Mr. Walder said they looked at GPD’s cash balances several different ways. The first uses only the estimates provided by GPD The 2022 estimated ending cash balance of all GPD’s funds was about $3.86 million, which Mr. Walder said represented a cash carryover of 52%. Observer Note: Cash carryover is calculated by dividing revenue by expenses. He said he had a problem with carryover being this high and noted that when the money the Budget Commission took away at the original hearing ($1,879,301) was taken out of the equation, the carryover rate drops to 25%, which he said was the target value for carryover.

Mr. Walder then looked at GPD’s actual cash balances. Mr. Flaiz said he wanted to know about the actual beginning balance for 2022, but Mr. Walder countered that looking at the ending balance for 2022 was more telling, because everything that happened in 2022 was “rolled up into it.” Mr. Flaiz accepted this. Mr. Walder noted that GPD’s actual ending cash balance in the general fund for 2022 was $3,358,143, which is about a million dollars more than GPD estimated its ending balance would be. Mr. Flaiz pointed out that this was even with the Budget Commission’s reduction of GPD revenue by about $1.9 million. Mr. Walder said that the land improvement fund had an ending balance about $700,000 more than anticipated as well and that in reality GPD had much more carryover than they had anticipated even after the Budget Commission reduced their revenue. Mr. Walder calculated the actual cash carryover to be about 64% and said this amount of carryover occurred despite GPD’s actual 2022 expenses being higher than they predicted they would be. Observer Note: According to the information provided to this observer by the Budget Commission, 2022 GPD actual general fund expenses ($8,510,336) were about a million dollars more than estimated expenses ($7,387,311), and actual land improvement fund expenses ($1,315,291) were also about a million dollars more than estimated ($280,000). Mr. Flaiz reiterated that, after the Budget Commission reduced their revenue, GPD went on to spend over a million dollars more than they said they would out of the general fund. Mr. Walder said that it “... doesn't appear that they throttled back expenditures.” Mr. Flaiz agreed and said “after we took away the money, they actually accelerated their expenses.”

Mr. Walder then compared GPD’s estimated beginning balances to its actual revenue according to its first amendment of the year. He said GPD’s 2022 estimated total beginning cash balance across all funds was $11.795 million, and its actual total cash balance when its first amendment was approved in February 2022 was $12.84 million. Mr. Walder said that on January 6, 2023, GPD’s total cash balance was $12.041 million, which he said indicated that “they didn’t suffer” after the Budget Commission reduced their revenue. He added “moving them to 25% cash carryover is what we tell everyone they should be at, and that is (what carryover becomes by) taking $1.85 million, so I think the decision was accurate.”

Mr. Flaiz said he still wanted to know what GPD’s actual general fund beginning balance was in 2022. Mr. Walder said it was approximately $5.3 million; Mr. Flaiz noted that the estimated beginning balance was much lower than that (about $2.75 million). Mr. Walder remarked “their cash balance skyrocketed at a time when you would think it would stay flat or go down…. My question I asked myself is, what is the most amount of money they could ask to spend lawfully, that we removed their ability to spend it? And that's $1.85 million, right? So now my question is, in reality, did they have $1.85 million additional cash at the end of that period that they could have done everything that they could claim they were going to do? Yes, they had that and more.” He calculated that, if GPD had added to their budget projects/expenses totaling the amount of money the Budget Commission took from them and then actually did spend all of that money on those projects/expenses, its carryover would have been about 27% even with the revenue reduction still in place. Mr. Walder pointed out that 27% carryover is “well within the sweet spot. The sweet spot’s 25 to 30%... that's what we recommend to everybody.”

Mr. Flaiz stated “going back to what our statutory responsibilities are, under any of the scenarios, they just they're not demonstrating need for that money (the revenue the Budget Commission took from GPD at the original hearing).” Mr. Walder agreed. He also hypothesized that, if they were to undo the revenue reduction in 2022, it may have changed the Budget Commission’s decisions in GPD’s Budget Hearings in subsequent years. Mr. Walder and Mr. Flaiz agreed that, in subsequent Budget Hearings, GPD has never claimed that it had to cancel projects, close parks, or defer maintenance as a result of the revenue reduction. They also agreed that, if anything, the Budget Commission should have reduced GPD’s revenue by more than they actually did at the original 2022 Budget Hearing. Mr. Walder said they could have reduced GPD’s revenue by even more “because they ended up with way more cash than they anticipated, while spending more than they anticipated.”

There was a lengthy discussion about whether or not they could or should take more revenue away from GPD than they originally did. Mr. Walder calculated actual general fund cash carryover using GPD’s actual revenue and expense numbers for the last few completed budget years. He said carryover was 64.7% in 2022, 72% in 2023, and 82.6% in 2024. He said that the increasing carryover indicates that the Budget Commission should take more of GPD’s revenue. Mr. Flaiz pointed out that the Budget Commission has never been able to use an entity’s actual numbers against them because usually they only have predicted numbers, not actuals. He said that makes it “unfair” to take even more money away from GPD. Mr. Walder agreed, but said that knowing what he knows now, “I would have gone heavier (taken more money away).” He noted that GPD’s general fund ending cash balance has gone up each year from 2022 to 2024, and Mr. Flaiz said the Ohio Supreme Court has indicated that “the Budget Commission has a duty (to reduce revenue) if they're just adding to their cash balance and they don't need the money.”

Mr. Walder made a motion that the Budget Commission uphold its reduction of GPD’s revenue by the same amount that they did in the original 2022 Budget Hearing. Observer Note: According to the paperwork received by this observer from Budget Commission staff, this amount is $1,879,301. The motion passed unanimously. The Budget Commissioners signed a new 2022 Certificate of Estimated Resources dated September 29, 2025. This certificate’s numbers are the same as they were at the original 2022 GPD Tax Budget Hearing, which are as follows: $7,702,950 in the general fund, $77,685 in special revenue funds, and $2,135,363 in capital project funds for a total of $9,915,998.

After the vote, Mr. Flaiz reiterated that the GPD board could have discussed this matter at their meeting on September 15. He also noted that the GPD Executive Director and Fiscal Officer could have come to this meeting to talk to the Budget Commission, as this would not have required any board action. He said this would have given GPD and the Budget Commission the chance to have “a nice conversation,” and GPD would have had the opportunity to articulate why they needed more time.

As a result of the Budget Commission’s upholding of the revenue reduction, it was noted that GPD’s 2022 general fund numbers would change from what was listed above to the following (changes are in italics):

Estimated 1/1/2022 Unencumbered General Fund Cash Balance: $2,752,851
Estimated General Fund Revenue: $4,950,099
Estimated General Fund Expenses: $7,387,311
Estimated 12/31/22 General Fund Cash Balance: $ 315,639

Public Comment:

This observer asked if, hypothetically, the Budget Commission did decide to give GPD its revenue back today, or if this happens in the future, would residents who live in Geauga now but did not in 2022 still have to pay the returned tax revenue to GPD in 2026, 2027, or whenever the restoration of revenue occurs. The Budget Commissioners said that they would. Mr. Walder said “that is the problem with people collecting tax money and hoarding it. Because, let's take this, and turn it on its ear. You're here in Geauga right now, and let's say a taxing agency doesn't need the money, but collects it, and they're going to do something 20 years from now with that money, and you move out in 10 years. You paid for something that you're not going to get any benefit from, and you're already 10 years away before it's spent. There's unfairness on both sides of that equation.” He went on to say, “I think there's an argument that could be made by an entity to say, but I haven't done the things. I haven't collected the money, and I haven't done them. That's what would have been our decision, had there been evidence to say expenses were throttled by $1.8 million. They didn't do certain things. You didn't benefit from them. Then you weren't charged. Now they're going to do those things with that $1.8 million, and you're gonna get taxed (to pay for it).” He also pointed out that the BTA “... had issues with our (the Budget Commission’s) demeanor and our approach to it (the original hearing). That's what I read. I mean, they didn't like how we did it. They didn't say it (the revenue reduction) was wrong.”

Mr. Gorton confirmed that the County Commissioners would be handling the County’s rate resolution the next day at their meeting.

The meeting was adjourned at 11:27 am.

Next Meeting: The next Budget Commission meeting will be a Regular Meeting on Monday, October 6, 2025 at 10:00 am in the Auditor's Conference Room, 215 Main Street, Chardon, Ohio. Virtual attendance for all Budget Commission meetings is available via Microsoft Teams by emailing an invitation request to Ms. McMahan at PMcMahan@geauga.oh.gov.

Observer: Sarah McGlone

Editor: Rooney Moy

Reviewer: Gail Roussey

Submitted: October 3, 2025

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.

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