Commission asks for update on cuts
Saturday, March 22, 2008 11:56 PM EDT article source
The Lawrence County Commission Thursday agreed to send a letter to county officeholders, asking them what changes they have made to their budgets to comply with the 15 percent budget cut commissioners enacted earlier this year.
“This is just to check up, to see where we are,” Commissioner Tanner Heaberlin said in suggesting the letter be sent.
One officeholder has already slashed her staff to reduce costs. Lawrence County Recorder Sharon Gossett-Hager said she reduced her staff of five to four and found the process “the most difficult thing I have ever had to do.”
“It really took an emotional toll,” she said. “I have been physically ill but I did what I had to do.”
Gossett-Hager said she asked one staff member who was retirement age to go ahead and take her retirement, even though the woman had hoped to stay longer. Last year she did not replace another staffer who took a job elsewhere, which means within the last 12 or so months, she has lost two employees.
“Obviously this is going to impact the office operations,” Gossett- Hager said. “You can’t go from six to four (employees) and not have it impact the office. But I am a full-time recorder and that helps. If I weren’t there full-time, I don’t know what I would do.”
Gossett-Hager challenged other officeholders to bite the bullet and make the necessary cuts to their budget.
In other matters, Lawrence County Treasurer Stephen Dale Burcham said the recent sale of property on which delinquent taxes were owed netted $21,000. This was in addition to money collected from some property owners who came in and paid their arrearages to save their property from the auction.
“Unfortunately it does take a tough love approach sometimes to get some people to come in and pay,” Burcham said.
Commissioner Doug Malone told Burcham he was pleased with the programs and new policies Burcham has implemented since becoming treasurer, such as the push to collect delinquent taxes.
“You’ve brought a lot of positive change to the treasurer’s office and we appreciate it,” Malone said.
Commissioner Jason Stephens suggested that in the future, the county might perhaps kill two birds with one stone: He said he would like to see Burcham’s office, township trustees, village and city officials and various citizens groups come up with a list of abandoned properties on which taxes are owed and offer them for auction.
Burcham credited other officeholders for the team effort to conduct the sale.
The commission also agreed to send letters to the Ohio Department of Transportation and the village of Chesapeake, thanking officials from both entities for their work on clearing a stopped up drain on Rockwood Avenue in Chesapeake. The plugged drain forced water into the roadway each time it rained, making travel unsafe.