Bath Trustees OK 2012 Budget Without Major Cuts in Services

Bath Township trustees agreed by a 3-0 vote Monday to approve the township’s 2012 budget of $10.96 million without making major cuts in township services.

The trustees held a brief public hearing to discuss details of the budget, and then segued to a separate special meeting to approve the budget and to vote on two resolutions seeking calculations from the Summit County auditor on the millage to replace or renew a 1.4-mill road levy.

Administrator William Snow said the township experienced a “relatively difficult year this year, the state budget bill impacted us quite greatly. We lost about 50 percent of our local government money. That all starts actually, July 1 of this year, and it’ll certainly impact next year. This year I think we can get through that, we’ll have to make some minor adjustments in our budget but I think we’ll make it through there.”

“We’re able to hold our services at the same level – (we’re) pretty proud of that,” Snow said.

Trustee James Nelson said, “The department heads and employees have been very conscientious providing services and containing costs, not just this year, but in years past as well. This is a continuation of this board’s very conservative approach and management policy.”   

“Budget assumptions are always something that are very difficult to develop,” Snow said. “I think the board knows all of our labor contracts come up at the end of this year. And with that in mind, and there’s certainly a lot of uncertainty with Senate Bill 5 (the controversial bill that restricts what unions for public employees can do), with a lot of complexities there. We’ve drafted a budget that essentially just holds the same wages and benefit level on a budget standpoint going forward into next year with no increases.”

“We did look at a slight increase in natural gas cost, but pretty much held it the same (as) what it was.

“We have an expiring road levy. It’s problematic to the services that provide – our road department is funded by gas tax money and two levies, the first one being a 2-mill, continuing levy that provides $922,000, actually $923,000, roughly.

“What’s problematic for us is we have a 1.4-mill levy that expires, and it brings us $745,000, a little bit more than that – probably make a little less as we go forward,” Snow said. “So that will leave our road department pretty much doing some basic services next year” – snow and ice removal, and basic maintenance on roads. There probably won’t be money for infrastructure improvements.

An unknown factor is how property value reassessments will affect township property tax income, which is Bath’s primary source of revenue. “We will have a better idea of that in November-December,” Snow said.

“We do not see any major changes in personnel, and this budget is drafted to provide the same level of service going into 2012,” Snow said. “Just the replacement for a few police cars, not a whole lot for the fire department other than the status quo, parks have some improvements planned under the park levy but nothing real significant there.”

“Our budget does reflect a slight decrease in our solid waste fund because our fee’s gone down, so we’ll be collecting less money – that’s all good. There’s probably going to be no major road maintenance projects next year with the levy expiring, unless we do something.”

Snow said he’s been asked why the 2012 budget is developed so far in advance. “State law requires us as a political subdivision of the state to put our tax budget together for the next year this early so that the board of trustees can consider any tax initiatives and those would need to be adopted. If there were something to be done as far as a tax initiative on the ballot, by the middle of August, so that’s the reason we go through the process of developing a budget for 2012. Like we did this year, we have an expiring levy for our road department so that we can deal with that.”      

A copy of the budget is to be filed at the Summit County fiscal officer’s office by July 20.