(VIDEO) SCPR SERIES ON 2014 STARK CO. BUDGET - VOLUME NO. 5

VIDEO

STARK CO. BUDGET DIRECTOR

CHRIS NICHOLS

SEGMENT 5

THE 2014 PROPOSED BUDGET

BUDGET DIRECTOR CHRIS NICHOLS
EXPLAINS
"HOW WE GOT THERE"

As "a public service" the SCPR brings to everyday Stark Countians a multi-part series (eight blogs in all) on the "proposed" (see disclaimer in graphic above) 2014 Stark County budget.

Today, The Report presents Volume 5 of Stark County Commissioners' Budget Director Chris Nichols' 2014 Stark County "proposed" budget.

Readers of this blog to get a full appreciation of Nichols' presentation should make sure that they have read prior blogs in order as listed below:

1. Volume 1
2. Volume 2 
3. Volume 3 
4. Volume 4

In Volume 1, Commissioner Thomas Bernabei appears in the video and oulines the four (4) guidelines that he and fellow commissioners Janet Creighton and Richard Regula laid out to Nichols in formulating the 2014 budget, to wit:

1. The county must live within its means,
2. New revenue for the year must support the operation budget of the county through 2019,
3. Carry-over funds cannot be used to fund the day-to-day operations of government,
4. He must build a 2014 budget that forms a viable base on which budgets through 2019 can be realistically projected as being "sustainable" budgets.

In this series of blogs we have traveled the twists, turns and travails of the budgetary road with our driver and Stark County budget director Chris Nichols.

The SCPR has annotated Nichols' graphic to show which departments did good and which did not do so good in toeing the line of being a team player in helping the county realize a trajectory which will keep the county solvent through 2019 when the current 0.5% eight year long sales tax expires.

While 2019 seems like a long way off, in terms of setting the table to be in a position for the Stark County voting public to say in the primary or general election of 2019 (at sales tax levy renewal time) "well done, thou good and faithful servant," 2014 is a critical year in establishing a base which with a few tweaks in years 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 puts the county in a position to achieve voter approval in 2019.

One of the most telling charts that Nichols prepared was one in which he did a history of appropriations from 2010 (before the financial crisis hit full force) and 2014, which, of course, is the first year of full recovery from the nose dive of 2011 and 2012.

Travel along via video with Budget Director Nichols as he takes us down "the road less traveled" of fiscal austerity that many of we taxpayers think that government at all levels has pretty much avoided over much of the history of our nation.