Belmont County Commissioners plan to have two levies on November ballot (edited)
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ST. CLAIRSVILLE - The Belmont County Board of Commissioners began the steps Wednesday of putting two levies on the November ballot.
Commissioners adopted resolutions declaring the necessity of levying a tax in excess of the ten mill limitation and requesting Belmont County Auditor Cindi Henry to certify matters in connection regarding a 0.75 mill renewal levy for Belmont County 911 and a 0.75 renewal and decrease levy to Senior Services of Belmont County.
Senior Services of Belmont County executive director Lisa Kazmirski said that the program operates on two levies, a 1.0 mill levy and a 1.5 mill levy.
"This year, the one mill is up for renewal, and we’ve decided to ask the taxpayers to renew it at a reduction to 0.75 mil," Kazmirski said. "The 0.75 mil will generate enough income for us to maintain what we’re doing now. And when there is any type of overage, we have a substantial carryover from year to year that supports about almost a year’s worth of a budget. So we wanted to do what we could for taxpayers to reduce their burden, but at the same time not compromise our home delivered meals, medical transportation, or our 10 senior centers."
She added that this would be the biggest reduction that the agency is comfortable with making while being able to conduct all of its regular business.
"Essentially, we will go from two-and-a-half mills over the next two years to 2.25 mills if we get the support from taxpayers that we’re hoping for," Kazmirski said. "We want to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars. We want to be responsible to the residents. We don’t want to ask anybody to support something that we wouldn’t want to do ourselves."
She added that, as property owners in the county, Senior Services believes residents shouldn’t pay more if they don’t need to.
"We’ve looked at the numbers long and hard for weeks, and we feel like giving the taxpayers a reduction, but maintaining the quality services is first and foremost. And we believe we've found that balance," Kazmirski said.
911 Director Bryan Minder then spoke about the 0.75 mill renewal levy for 911, which will go towards the department’s radio upgrade levy.
"It allows us to upgrade our system that the first responders use for communications every day: fire, police, EMS, EMA, everybody in the county that uses our radio system, it allows us to upgrade and to maintain the system," Minder said. "Just maintenance on the system alone is exorbitant. It’s a very big cost, hundreds of thousands a year just to maintain the system itself, yet alone to do upgrades to it when we need to and to buy new radios when we need to."
He added that the levy was put in effect in 2012. Minder said when it first started it was a one mill levy.
"Last time, in 2021 we lowered it to 0.75 mills, and we are just wanting to renew that at this time," Minder said. "We're asking for support from everybody in Belmont County to continue to support us with our radio system levy."
Commissioner Jerry Echemann added that the county has a budget commission that consists of the county's auditor, treasurer, and prosecutor, which has the power to look at the various levies, and look at the departments to ensure the funds are being used.
"Whether it’s Senior Services or 911, the commission can say 'hey, it's got too much surplus funds,' and they could suspend a levy for a year, but we’re not going down that road now. We don’t think that because we’ve got our levy situation worked out," Echemann said. "There’s going to be a senior services levy on the ballot, and that’ll be in November, and that’ll be an actual reduction for the people from one mill to 0.75 and then 911 will also be on the ballot, and that’ll be a straight renewal for the same amount of money."
He added that the budget commission is crucial to ensure the county runs efficiently and effectively as possible.
"It’s an animal that’s always been there, but you’d never really hear about it in the years past. Even though it existed, they weren’t very active. Now they’re more active, and the whole idea is to go to departments that have surplus funds and figure out how we can drain that down," Echemann said. "One way you can do it is by slight reductions in the levies, because if they don’t have as much money coming in. Then they got to go to that savings pool and drain that down. We don’t want the money’s getting too high for any department."
He added that the board is very active in looking for ways to reduce the burden on the public. "These agencies are run through the generosity of the public. In a lot of cases, when they go out and vote for these levies," Echemann said. "We owe it to them to try to bring them down when we can, and we have been able to do that successfully."
He added that he believes that the levies have gone down over the past couple of years.
"It doesn’t go down a great deal of money for the average person or household. But down is still down even if it’s just a little," Echemann said.