2026 Geauga Public Health Revenue Out of Balance by Over $2 Million
Budget Commission Meeting – May 18, 2026
Meeting Details: The Geauga County Budget Commission met in Regular Session on Monday, May 18, 2026 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. To attend Budget Commission meetings virtually via MS Teams, email an invitation request to Pam McMahan at PMcMahan@geauga.oh.gov.
Meeting Attendance: Treasurer Chris Hitchcock, Auditor Chuck Walder, and Prosecutor Jim Flaiz (arriving at 10:45 am).
Staff Attendance: Deputy Auditors Tina Kloski, Kristen Sinatra and Jennifer Hess, Auditor’s Office Chief Operations Officer Pam McMahan, ADP (Automatic Data Processing) Chief Deputy Administrator Frank Antenucci, and Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Kristen Rine (virtual).
County Staff: Geauga County Budget and Finance Manager Adrian Gorton (virtual).
Members of the Public: Geauga County Mental Health and Recovery Services Board Member Kathy Johnson (virtual) and this LWV Geauga Observer (virtual).
The meeting was called to order at 10:02 am.
Minutes: Minutes for the Budget Commission meeting on May 4, 2026 were approved. Budget Commission Minutes can be found here when posted.
The following Revenue Certificates were approved:
Reviewer Note: An explanation of the different types of funds in revenue certifications can be found
here.
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Berkshire Local Schools - Amendment #8. $26,266,352.44 in the general fund, $4,558,779.63 in special revenue funds, $1,654,189.22 in debt service funds, $722,624.59 in capital project funds, $956,363.63 in enterprise funds, $549,009.57 in internal service funds, and $197,472.01 in fiduciary funds for a total of $34,904,791.09.
Berkshire’s amendment certified increases in the general fund and in special revenue funds.
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Hambden Township - Amendment #2. $1,048,997.41 in the general fund, $2,985,196.19 in special revenue funds, and $389,329.84 in capital project funds for a total of $4,423,523.44.
Hambden’s amendment certified an increase in the general fund.
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Geauga Trumbull Solid Waste - Amendment #2. $5,329,388.89 in the general fund and $10,000 in special revenue funds for a total of $5,339,388.89.
Geauga Trumbull Solid Waste’s amendment certified an increase in special revenue funds.
The following Revenue Certificates were tabled:
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Chardon Township - Ms. Sinatra explained that Chardon Township’s original year end certificate was generated using Excel spreadsheets rather than UAN (Uniform Accounting Network) because they were unable to get UAN to generate the certificate. They have since been able to get their UAN issues rectified, and the new year end certificate created by UAN generated some different numbers than the one created using spreadsheets. The new year end certificate was presented to the Budget Commission as a re-signing of Chardon Township’s first amendment. Mr. Walder noted that this would be treating the situation as a clerical error, but that is not what happened here. He went on to say that treating this as a re-sign would essentially delete the historical record of what occurred, which he said is supposed to be “part of the audit trail” should there be a future audit. There was some discussion about how to handle this situation. The Budget Commission seemed to coalesce around creating an amended version of the previously approved year end balances (“Amendment Number One, Amended”) and voted to table the matter until the next meeting so that the amended version of the first amendment could be created.
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Munson Township - The two new reserve accounts for Munson- a vehicle/equipment reserve capital project fund and a road improvement reserve capital project fund- were considered by the Budget Commission. It was noted that these reserve funds were vetted and signed off on by Munson’s APA (Assistant Prosecuting Attorney) and Munson provided a narrative on the dollar amounts they were planning to put in each reserve fund. Mr. Walder wanted to know what the dollar amounts were based on. Ms. Sinatra said that the County Engineer’s office no longer does road reviews/ratings for entities so Munson based the numbers on historical data. Mr. Walder asked if several pieces of information were included in the submission, such as quotes on the cost of vehicles and equipment and details on how many miles of road need to be paved in Munson. He said that “normally there has to be some math that's done by an independent person…. Otherwise, arguably, a set of trustees can come in and say ‘we have $2 million we gotta hide, let's create a road fund reserve, and let's put $2 million in it.’ And then, who's going to argue? And then it's off the books from the view of the Budget Commission, and they're basically just squirreling away money. I'm not saying that's happening here, but… the way you prevent that from happening is to do reserve studies.” Ms. Sinatra said that Munson may be in the process of doing reserve studies. Mr. Walder noted that the two reserve funds combined amounted to about $800,000 being moved without a reserve study, and he went on to say that in the past they have required entities to provide a reserve study or a hard quote from a third party. The Budget Commission voted to table its consideration of Munson’s reserve funds until reserve data is received.
Other Business:
Discussion:
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Update on Geauga Park District’s Missing Permanent Appropriations. Observer Note: Please see the April 6, 2026 Budget Commission LWVG Observer Report and the May 4, 2026 Budget Commission LWVG Observer Report for more information. Geauga Park District (GPD) responded to the Budget Commission’s notice that its permanent appropriations had not been received by saying its original submission was for permanent appropriations, not temporary appropriations. Ms. Sinatra said her email communication with GPD (Geauga Park DIstrict) in December 2025 seemed to indicate they were operating under temporary appropriations. The record of communications between the Auditor's Office staff and GPD was examined in some detail. Ultimately, the Budget Commission decided to table the matter. Mr. Walder indicated that he would like GPD’s current treasurer to advise the Budget Commission about whether or not their appropriations are temporary or permanent.
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Update on Geauga Public Health’s Budget. Auditor’s Office staff informed the Budget Commissioners that the 2027 Geauga Public Health (GPH) budget submission has been received and its 2026 revenue does not match the entries in New World. Observer Note: New World is the County’s fiscal management software program. GPH will have its 2027 Budget Hearing before the Budget Commission on June 1. Mr. Walder expressed frustration about the mismatched revenue numbers, which may stem from GPH using spreadsheets for its budget submission instead of the accounting software system. He said he was opposed to spreadsheet budgets and noted that across entities “a lot of the problems we have have centered around mistakes made in spreadsheets, either with columns copied wrong and duplicates, math doesn't work, and yet people continue to do it.” Ms. Sinatra said she determined that GPH was out of balance with New World by over $2 million in January, and she advised GPH to “decertify where you need to decertify.” Mr. Walder confirmed that this has not been done. Ms. Sinatra expressed concern about looking at GPH’s 2027 budget since the 2026 budget is out of balance.
Mr. Walder asked the staff about how GPH is doing with resolving some of their historical financial issues, and it was determined that GPH continues to have problems with the then and now test. Observer Note: See the April 20, 2026 Budget Commission LWVG Observer Report for more information.
It was noted that GPH pay-ins sometimes violate the 24 hour rule. Observer Note: Pay-ins are payments received by the county. The 24 hour rule refers to the fact that under state law, pay-ins must be deposited in the county treasury within 24 hours of being received. Mr. Hitchcock said “we (his office) will be cited because of their (GPH’s) absolute lack of complying with the law” and noted that some GPH pay-ins take weeks to be deposited. There was uncertainty about why this is the case. The possibility was raised that some payments may be sent to Lake County first and then are delayed in getting to Geauga for deposit within 24 hours. If this is the case, there was additional uncertainty expressed about whether the 24 hour time period starts when Lake County receives the payment or rather when the payment arrives in Geauga from Lake.
Discussion returned to GPH’s 2026 revenue issue. Mr. Walder suggested that GPH work to get back in balance by June 1 and said he would prefer to see a “clean” budget using New World numbers. The Budget Commission voted to have the staff reach out to GPH and instruct them to correct their revenue certifications and decertifications prior to final budget submission so that "legitimate" numbers from New World can be used.
Public Comment:
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This Observer asked for clarification on pay-ins and the 24 hour rule; the answer is reflected earlier in this report. This Observer also requested a copy of all materials from this meeting, which were received via email on May 18, 2026.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:49 am.
Next Meeting: The next Budget Commission Meeting will be a Special Meeting for the Geauga Public Health 2027 Budget Hearing and Regular Business on Monday, June 1, 2026 at 10:00 am in the Auditor's Conference Room, 215 Main Street, Chardon. Virtual attendance for 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: Carol Benton
Reviewer: Gail Roussey
Submitted: May 22, 2026
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