(VIDEOS) SCPR SERIES ON 2014 STARK CO. BUDGET - VOLUME NO. 1

VIDEO

STARK CO. BUDGET DIRECTOR

CHRIS NICHOLS

 "INTRO"

(COMMISSIONER BERNABEI "CAMEO")

ON

2014

STARK COUNTY BUDGET

As "a public service" (attn:  Stark Dems' chairman Randy Gonzalez) 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 One.

First, a word about Stark County Budget Director Chris Nichols.

On June 19, 2013, in what was somewhat of a surprise to the SCPR, the Stark County commissioners announced at their regular weekly meeting (held on Wednesdays at 1:30 PM on the second floor of the Stark County Office Building nearly every week of the year) that they were hiring one Chris Nichols as the commissioners' Director of Management and Budget.

• SCPR Note:  Readers, please go to this LINK in order to get background on the hiring of Nichols.
• As SCPR readers know, The Report's forte is having a healthy skepticism of government as applied to the villages, cities, townships and boards of education that make up the political subdivisions of our Stark County.  Of course, the county government itself gets a continuing and persistent SCPR "once over."
• The LINK provides readers with an example of the critique that the SCPR applies to each and every action done by the Stark County commissioners including the hiring of Chris.
• In a recent SCPR sit down with Nichols, one of the things he brought up, was the graphic that The Report used in analyzing his hiring by the commissioners.  And he talked about how a relative is prone to kid him about the graphic

• County employees like Nichols are favorites of the SCPR because Nichols exemplifies a fully mature public official who does not take offense at being scrutinized and, in fact, welcomes inquiry, and does not take himself so seriously that he cannot take being poked fun of.
• Unfortunately, the SCPR believes that Nichols is the exception rather than the rule among Stark County officialdom, especially those officials who are elected.
• It is noteworthy that he is an "appointed" official, although, as pointed out in the LINK, he is an elected Canton Township trustee.
• More typical of what the SCPR gets (again, the emphasis on the "elected" ones), given The Report's incisive, no-nonsense questioning is that exemplified by Stark County Stark County Democratic Party "appointed" sheriff George T. Maier.
• It is apparent to The Report that Maier thinks he is not accountable to the Stark County public except for the softballs tossed his way by Stark's mainstream media.

Now, off the soapbox.

On to The Report's Volume One and examining "in detail" the 2014 Stark County Budget.

The Stark County sales tax ([0.5%]Justice System Sales Tax "JSST") was passed in 2011 in a superlative campaign put on at the initiative of and on the energy of, elected in November, 2010, commissioners Thomas Bernabei (Democrat) and Janet Creighton (Republican).

The above graphic (numbers supplied by Nichols) is the base from which the SCPR is formulated upon because it is the "first full year" that the JSST was collected.

Readers are reminded that the county was barely done with what one Stark County civic activist as termed as being "Zeiglergate" when Stark Countians saw fit to pass the 0.5% JSST.

• SCPR Note:  (LINK for background; Zeigler resigned/retired on October 19, 2011 a matter of about 2-1/2 weeks before the November, 2011 election)

While the SCPR supported the 0.5% sales tax increase, The Report wrote at the time that the commissioners should have put on a full 1%.

Why was The Report for a full 1%?

First, because the 0.5% over an eight-year life cycle is problematical in terms of being enough for base county government operations to be sustainable at the end of the cycle in 2019, and

Second, because the 0.5% does not allow enough financial resources to provide for such critical local government funding:

• for long term capital improvement projects (e.g. solving Stark County chronic flooding problems because of neglected maintenance and capital improvement of the county's storm water carry off "ditch system,"), and
• for the fostering of job creating economic development projects.

The commissioners ignored the SCPR and a number of countywide elected officials (e.g. Stark County prosecutor John Ferrero) in the call for a full 1% sales tax increase.

Though the SCPR recognizes that the commissioners had concerns about passing any levy in the wake of Zeiglergate, hindsight does show that a full 1% was likely doable.

The commissioners made their choice and must now deal with the financially constrained circumstances under which they govern.

The Report will not abide excuses from the commissioners of having inadequate funding when the summer storms come and flood out all too many "everyday" Stark Countians and the stagnation at 7.3% unemployment that Stark County continues to be plagued with.

SCPR holds the commissioners accountable to become creative and find ways and means, in the context of the 0.5% JSST for eight years, to deal with the ditching problems and getting something substantial going on the economical development front.

As so should day-in, day-out Stark Countians.

As seen in the graphic above, Stark County starts out 2014 with $10.5 million carry-over from 2013 into the new fiscal year (January 1 through December 31) 2014.

The SCPR videotaped the entire presentation that Budget Director Nichols gave last Wednesday (March 13, 2014).

And somewhere along the line doing this multi-volume series, The Report will make available the entire (approximately 45 minute) presentation.

However, the SCPR recognizes that it is best, given the attention span that most of us human being have, to break up the videos in to digestible segments.

In today's five minute video (actually 4:32), Chris Nichols gives a general background and survey for the 2014 budget.

Also, at the very beginning of the video, Commissioner Thomas Bernabei outlines 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,

(VIDEO) COUNTY COMMISSIONERS' CONSIDERATION OF "RETIRE/REHIRE" POLICY SHOULD SPARK A COUNTYWIDE CONSIDERATION (CITIES, VILLAGES, TOWNSHIPS & BOARDS OF EDUCATION) AND COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW OF THE MATTER?

On Tuesday of this week the Stark County commissioners revived an issue that is a sore point with many who work in the private sector, namely; the proliferation of public employees who retire from their public jobs and then get immediately rehired to do the very same job often at the same wage and benefits package.

The major loser in these "inside jobs" is the Stark County taxpaying public, in that:

• retire/rehire excludes the Stark County public from having the opportunity to secure these jobs,
• is costly to taxpayers because the rehires are often rehired at their retirement salary plus benefits because in the cozy relationship between the hiring authority and the employee there is no "arms length" and competitive negotiating going on.

The SCPR has done quite a number of blogs on the issue.  Here are some of them:

• in the world of education (LINK1) (LINK2),
• in the realm of elective public officials retiring and then running for the same office to serve once again even after retiring (LINK1) (LINK2),
• employees that retire and then get immediately rehire in the same capacity (e.g. sheriff department chief deputies McDonald and Perez) [LINK]),

And, of course, there is an ongoing brouhaha in Canton in which there are allegations that some 30 city employees retired and rehired resulting in their dismissal by the Healy administration in mid-January of this year.

The alleged missteps could cost Canton taxpayers $1 million in a city that is projecting a $3.7 million deficit for 2013.

As far as the SCPR is concerned it is welcome news that the commissioners are reviewing county policy on the retire/rehire question.  Unfortunately, even if they adopt what The Report believes to be a "makes sense" policy, it only affects those county employees under the direct authority of the commissioners.

Here is the full text of the commissioners' proposal (which is a work-in-progress):

The Board of Stark County Commissioners will not rehire an [employee] who retires from public service, except in extraordinary circumstances as outlined below.

While the Board recognizes and commends longtime {employees] for their service to the community, it also recognizes that public service positions that become vacant should provide opportunities to all members of the public who are not the previous holders of that position.  This is both a common sense conclusion and recognition of public expectations.

An extraordinary exception may be made, however, when the hiring authority believes it is in the public's best interest to rehire an employee who provides unparalleled expertise and experience without which service to the public would be greatly diminished.  These are rare occasions and a decision to make such an extraordinary rehire will be done only after open discussion, resulting in action taken in an open public meeting.

 The Board of Stark County Commissioners adopts this retire/rehire policy for all hiring within its hiring authority, and urges all departments and agencies of County [sic] government to adopt the same policy.

Though the commissioners measure would not affect employees of other Stark County department of government elective offices, by way of example - to wit:

• Stark County auditor,
• Stark County Board of Elections
• Stark County clerk of courts
• Stark County coroner, 
• Stark County Court of Common Pleas,
• Stark County engineer, 
• Stark County prosecutor
• Stark County recorder,
• Stark County sheriff, and
• Stark County treasurer.

The current office holders ought to take up  consideration of implementing such a policy for their respective departments of Stark County government.

And, whether or not they do, should become campaign issues for those offices in which there is a political context this November.

As Commissioner Creighton and Stark County Chief Administration Mike Hanke are seen to say in the video below, all Stark County public employees should be subject to the same retire/rehire policy.



Moreover, the SCPR advocates that all of Stark's cities, villages, townships and boards of educations consider adapting/adopting policy along the lines of the commissioners' pending initiative.

The Report would add one thing to the policy.  Measures should be included that would guarantee to the taxpayers that a rehire in an "extraordinary" situation would not be necessarily a rehire at the retiree's old salary and benefits..  Provisions that ensure that an "arms length" negotiation need to be worked into the proposal.

A SCPR "hats off" to the commissioners for bringing the matter of revising the retire/rehire policy up.

The Report's admonition to the rest of Stark County's political subdivisions?

Go and do likewise!