Geauga Park District Commissioners June 20 meeting
June 23, 2022 by Brian Doering

Geauga Park District Board of Commissioners approved a full plate of items June 20, including bylaw changes, the 2023 tax budget, bid requests, a bid award for The West Woods and the purchase of property adjacent to The Rookery.

Geauga Park District Board of Commissioners approved a full plate of items June 20, including bylaw changes, the 2023 tax budget, bid requests, a bid award for The West Woods and the purchase of property adjacent to The Rookery.

During the Monday meeting, commissioners approved a resolution for proposed changes to GPD’s bylaws as presented by Director of Finance Jennifer Pae.

“Upon reviewing Geauga Park District current bylaws, the director of finance, the executive director and GPD’s legal counsel are making recommended updates to better reflect the fiscal operations of the park district,” said Pae.

What GPD has been referring to as “vouchers” in the current bylaws and in the monthly presentation of vouchers to the board — which are voted on — are payments that have already been made.

“Since we do not have a manual financial system, like when we were with the county where purchase requisitions were submitted for the county to create purchase orders upon their approval on our behalf, the financial term ‘voucher’ no longer applies,” said Pae.

Pae said when GPD presents payments to the board to vote on with the monthly presentation of vouchers after they occurred, it could be problematic if the board chooses not to approve and the payment has already taken place.

Pae said local governments in Ohio are not required by law to have their boards approve monthly individual payments since legislative bodies have already approved appropriation legislation permitting these payments to occur throughout the year.

“The big thing is the elimination of having vouchers,” said Pae. “As well as just having the director of finance do the financial operations.”

Pae said a current monthly financial report and a listing of monthly vendor payments with year-to-date totals will be provided to the commissioners beginning with the July 2022 meeting. “Therefore, the current ‘voucher’ report will be enhanced but not needed to be voted upon passage of the revised bylaws,” she said.

She also said there are many places within the current bylaws that have the executive director responsible for fiscal practices and the proposed changes in Articles III and XI now detail the responsibilities of the director of finance.

Park board commissioners also approved a resolution for the estimated 2023 tax budget in the amount of $1,665,798, which was prepared from property tax collection estimates provided by the Geauga County Auditor’s Office.

According to the 2023 tax budget, the estimated budget amount comprises a beginning fund balance of $3,504,143, revenues of $6,949,975 less expenditures in the amount of $7,788,320.

Pae said all submitted tax budgets must present actual revenue and expenses in the previous two years, estimates for the current fiscal year, as well as projected budget figures for 2023.

“You’re not voting on the budget for 2023 at this time, you’re just looking at what is our need in order to justify the 2.6 mills and property tax that have been voted on and supported by the voters of Geauga County for the park district,” said Pae.

The next step in the process will be forwarding the budget to the Geauga County Budget Commission, along with supporting documents in preparation for the scheduled hearing on Aug. 16.

Pae said the park district will be very prepared after park board Commissioner Pat Preston cautioned her about the budget commission process.

“You are walking into a political fire storm, and they want to make random generalized statements about things that have no basis of fact,” said Preston.

In other business, commissioners approved an increase in funding for the Veterans Legacy Woods HVAC replacement project to $240,000, and approved advertising the project for bid once again.

“We have two existing units that are in the attic space above the restrooms and one of the units is not working, so we are basically down to one unit,” said Deputy Director Matt McCue.

Because of maintenance issues and the concern of being located in a small area, the plan would be to move the mechanical room down to the basement area of the building, install two new HVAC units, along with doing new electrical and duct work.

Original bidding of the project back in April and a re-bid in May, resulted in no bids being received within the 10% of the advertised engineer’s estimate and fell outside of available funds budgeted for the project.

Commissioners also gave their approval to enter into an agreement with DLZ Engineering for field survey, hydraulic analysis and design drawings for a fee not to exceed $57,389 for the bridge over Silver Creek along the entry to The West Woods.

McCue said in the last two years, they have signs of a high rate of corrosion when it comes to the structure.

DLZ was tasked with evaluating three alternatives for replacement of the existing bridge and concluded a steel truss bridge with a concrete road deck will have the longest life span.

“We had DLZ look at the bridge last year and they recommended, as did the county engineer, that it probably needs to be replaced within the next three-to-five years,” said McCue.

The final item commissioners approved was a motion allowing Executive Director John Oros to work with legal counsel to execute a purchase and sale agreement in the amount of $249,900 for 32 acres of property adjacent to The Rookery in Newbury Township.

Park biologist Paul Pira said much of the watershed of the property drains and feeds into one of only three streams in Ohio that have native Brook Trout.

“It’s an endangered species in Ohio and this property is directly responsible for much of the watershed and the water flow going into the stream,” said Pira. “We all thought that it was very important to protect that natural resource.”