Budget Commission Refuses to Reconsider Park District Budget
The Geauga County Budget Commission rebuffed the Geauga Park District’s efforts to be allowed to resubmit its previously approved 2022 budget Aug. 27.
The Geauga County Budget Commission rebuffed the Geauga Park District’s efforts to be allowed to resubmit its previously approved 2022 budget Aug. 27.
The budget commission sat for a special meeting as scheduled at 9 a.m. to reexamine the 2022 budgets for Geauga Public Library, Russell Township and South Russell Village.
Before the first hearing, Geauga County Prosecutor Jim Flaiz said he had received correspondence from the park district’s attorney, Jon Oebker, at 2:51 p.m. Aug. 26. In it, Oebker, who the park district hired Aug. 10, requested GPD be able to resubmit its budget because it had corrected the errors, Flaiz said.
“During the Aug. 26, 2021, hearing, the budget commission noted errors in the park district’s submitted budget and took the position that the submitted budget from the park district did not comply with Ohio law. However, in a departure from past practice, the budget commission declined to allow the park district the opportunity to correct the errors and resubmit its proposed budget,” Oebker wrote in his letter to the commission dated Aug. 26, asking the commission to allow the park district to appear at the Aug. 27 meeting.
“I took it upon myself to respond,” Flaiz said, noting the legal issues he explained in his 5:19 p.m. response on Aug. 26.
“First, we are beyond the sunshine (law) requirements for the special meeting tomorrow at 9 a.m.,” he said, adding only three entities had been included in the notice.
“The notice for approval of the millage reduction is only for the budget commission to approve the exact millage reduction to match the dollar amount reduction that was previously approved at the park district’s (Aug. 16) budget hearing,” he wrote. “There has not been the required legal notice for a park district hearing.
“There is no mechanism to reopen a hearing on an already approved budget, which would be a total deviation from past practice and the dictates of the (Ohio) Revised Code.”
An email from the auditor’s office explained the reason the issue came up at the Aug. 27 special meeting was to revise and finalize the exact millage reduction. At the Aug. 16 meeting an estimate of adjusted millage of the 2013 1 mill levy was 0.36 mill. The commission resolved at the Aug. 27 meeting to collect the levy at a rate of 0.4 mills for tax year 2021 beginning in 2022.
On Aug. 27, Park Board Executive Director John Oros, Oebker and district treasurer Mike Frederick sat outside the auditor’s conference room for the 90 minutes it took for the other three hearings.
Before those hearings started, county Treasurer Chris Hitchcock and county Auditor Chuck Walder agreed with Flaiz’s reasoning.
“We can’t fall victim of not honoring the Sunshine Laws just because others don’t,” Walder said, noting the park district representatives were present. “I don’t know why they are standing there.”
On Aug. 16, the commission reviewed the park district’s budget, received July 14, which did not include about $1.9 million in property taxes the district expected to collect in 2022. The commission took the stand that if the district didn’t have that amount in the budget, the funds are not needed for 2022 and the three-member commission passed a resolution that decreased the amount to be collected in 2022 by $1.9 million.
After the Aug. 26 meeting adjourned, Oebker stopped Flaiz in the hallway and asked why the commission had not allowed himself, Oros and Frederick into the meeting.
Flaiz replied the meetings are open to the public and they could have come into the conference room at any time.
Outside, Oros explained why they wanted an audience with the commission.
“We simply want a dialogue and a reason,” Oros said, noting he has been executive director of the district since 2013.
He said the “transpositional error” in the budget the commission approved Aug. 16 had been corrected.
“Others were invited to come back. We have a plan. We wanted an opportunity to re-present, to go back with a plan to spend the funds,” he said. “We were prepared to do that.”
The GPD is not done in its efforts to reclaim the $1.9 million the commission voted to return to property owners via smaller tax collections.
Oebker said the park district can appeal the commission’s decision through the board of tax appeals.
“There are different options. It depends on what’s at stake,” he said. “The park district wanted to work with them. They rejected those offers.”
