MOUNT VERNON — The Kiwanis Club hosted commissioners Teresa Bemiller and Thom Collier this week in order to hear an update on county operations. Armed with a stack of notes and numbers, Bemiller spent over 20 minutes reviewing 2017 and laying the foundation for plans in 2018.
In 2017, Knox County received $20.2 million in revenue. Those funds came in the form of sales tax (35 percent), property tax (28 percent), settlement fees and costs (28 percent), casino tax (5 percent), and local government (4 percent).
Last year’s budget included $16.7 million in appropriated funds and $3.5 million in certified unappropriated funds. The appropriated funds were distributed among 30 different departments.
“Thirty departments are either fully or partially funded by that $16.7 million, so we’re spreading that over a lot of different departments,” Bemiller said.
The county started 2018 with a $3.6 million carryover and an anticipated revenue of $16.6 million, a $3.1 million increase over the previous year.
“The biggest impact to our 2018 revenue was the implementation of the additional half percent sales tax in January of this year,” Bemiller said. “That was the last thing we wanted to do. We worked hard during the recession to make cuts – we did furloughs to avoid that – but this year we decided that we would have to do that.”
The additional sales tax would bring in $3.2 million to the county’s coffers. The combined sales tax rate for Knox County is 7.25 percent. That number is divvied up among three entities: 5.75 percent to the state, 1.25 percent to the county, and 0.25 percent to 9-1-1.
Forty-nine percent of the county’s budget is tied up in justice line items, which includes the Common Pleas and Juvenile courts, the sheriff’s department, the public defender, and the county prosecutor.
“Those costs have increased about $1.5 million, or 21 percent, since 2010,” said Bemiller.
The sheriff’s department comprises the largest portion of this part of the budget at 34 percent. This year, the commissioners appropriated $5.6 million for the department, of which $2.9 million will go to operating the county jail.
“That budget has increased about $510,000 over the last two years,” Bemiller explained. “That would include increases in personnel, cruisers, equipment. Inmate care costs for food and medical care are increasing because our jail is a 100-bed jail, but, unfortunately, in 2017 we were at or near that for a big part of the year, which is not good news.”
Bemiller added that the increase in inmates was due to the drug crisis. As a result, Sheriff David Shaffer had requested a new drug detective, a patrol officer, a jailer, and a full-time nurse to complement a part-time doctor. New body cameras, radio equipment, body scanner, and a locking system for the jail were purchased in 2017. Work was also done on the department’s HVAC system.
“Sheriff Shaffer and Capt. (Jay) Sheffer were good about going after grants to try to offset some of those costs that we run into running the 24/7, 365 days a year operation,” Bemiller added.
Since 2010, Knox County deferred a number of capital projects – doing only what was absolutely needed – in order to compensate for a reduction in state and local funding. The county had significant increases in the costs to the justice departments and learned last year that it would have a loss of local funding relating to jail operations. It is planning for a permanent loss of $500,000 in sales tax beginning in 2019. That loss will be due to the state not charging sales tax on a set of services.
“All of that is going to affect our bottom line next year,” Bemiller said.
While the county has been selective in where money will be spent, it has worked to create a fund balance in order to weather another economic downturn.
Bemiller noted that the county received a boost in bond ratings by Moody’s Investors Service, from Aa3 to an Aa2. “They said it reflected our growing tax base, the positive demographic trends, and a healthy financial profile. Also, is the county’s low debt burden. This, of course, makes the county more attractive to our investors and lowers our borrowing cost.
“But without the sales tax increase, our revenue projections would not have been that good and we would not have been upgraded. They did mention that was one of the things figured into that,” Bemiller added.
The county purchased $8.6 million in bonds, $5.1 million which will refund current wastewater bonds that were used for wastewater projects in the past. The remaining $3.5 million is earmarked for paving projects, including construction improvements to parking lots on the north side of Chestnut Street, andreplacing building automation systems at the Knox County Service Center and the Sheriff’s Office. The latter will also have a paving project done.
“The main reason we did this was … the bonds will be financing an addition to the Children’s Resource Center on Coshocton Road,” Bemiller said.
The Village Network partnered with the Department of Job and Family Services to lease the building and provide services to the county. JFS will make payments on that particular bond.
The county also purchased three properties. Two houses that border parking lots on Chestnut Street will be one of the places where the county will begin its paving project, which includes adding parking and green space. The third property, which is located on East High Street, now houses expanded probation services for the Common Pleas Court. Though the county purchased the facility, Common Pleas Court Judge Richard Wetzel secured grants to provide staffing for his new drug programs.
Last year, the commissioners created a list of capital improvements that were needed within the county, The projects on the list, which totaled about $4.2 million, were rated and are now being targeted for completion over the next few years.
“We know that we have significant issues because we have about $80 million worth of buildings that we must keep in good repair, as long as all the outside that goes along with that, too,” Bemiller said.
Other items of note included the creation of the Knox County Land Bank in 2017, an organization that facilitates the return of vacated, abandoned, and taxable closed properties to productive tax-paying status. The land bank will be partially funded by a 5 percent additional delinquent real estate property assessment.
“As those assessments come in and taxes, another 5 percent will go to help fund the land bank,” Bemiller said. “Creating this also makes us eligible for state and federal funding for those types of issues.”
The Knox County Area Development Foundation will be the administrative arm for the land bank.
Knox Area Transit, the county’s transportation system, had 161,000 total trips last year, an increase of almost 15,000 from the year before. KAT averaged 580 rides per day.
The Gambier to Mount Vernon shuttle proved successful, Bemiller added. “In June we had the Gambier to Mount Vernon shuttle start and we had 87 rides on that. It’s proving very popular with Kenyon students and other Gambier residents,” she said. Kenyon College helps to fund that route.
“Our goal is to make this more user-friendly,” Bemiller said. “Adding different routes, wanting to make sure we’re extending out to the villages, and want to be able to have people use this to get to work if they need to.”
