Trustees: Checks won't be in the mail

By CARL E. FEATHER - Staff Writer - cfeather@starbeacon.com
Star Beacon

AUSTINBURG TOWNHIP April 17, 2009 04:00 pm

— Township trustees who were asked to chip in $125,000 toward funding the Ashtabula County Sheriff’s Department appear to be unwilling to open this “Pandora’s box.”
“Once we do it, where does it stop?” asked Ashtabula Township Trustee Steve McClure during a discussion of the request at the monthly meeting of the Ashtabula County Townships Association, held Thursday evening in Austinburg. “We’d be opening a Pandora’s box.”
“We need to send a message back to (the commissioners): Solve your own problems. What I’m saying is, they’ve taken the monkey off their backs and put it on ours,” said Tony Long, Geneva Township trustee.
Long was expressing another concern that several trustees voiced during the meeting: If sheriff’s deputies are taken off the road because townships couldn’t come up with the money, they will be blamed if serious crimes occur in their jurisdiction.
Ashtabula County commissioners held a work session with trustees from the county’s 27 townships on April 2 to explain the county’s budget shortfall. Sheriff William Johnson told trustees that if commissioners cut his budget to $5 million, he would have to lay off 11 persons, which would result in an inability to provide deputy coverage to many of the townships. Commissioners asked the trustees to raise $100,000 to $125,000 collectively to prevent that scenario.
Commissioners Board President Peggy Carlo asked the trustees to express their intentions within three weeks. As of mid-week, Williamsfield and Jefferson townships had sent letters rejecting the pleas; Lenox trustees sent a letter requesting more information.
Harpersfield Trustee Ed Demshar said trustees there tossed out the question to constituents at a recent meeting, and “nobody raised their hand (in support), so it didn’t take long to count.”
Monroe Township Trustee Charles Riley said they had three times as many people as normal at their meeting.
“Nobody had an answer, but they didn’t want their money going to the county,” Riley said. He said people were “hollering, screaming” and even talked about burning down the Geneva-on-the Lake lodge.
Riley and several other trustees said constituents would be angry and refuse to vote for or renew levies if trustees exported township funds to county government. They also expressed fear of setting a precedent.
“You think this is going to be over if they get money this year?” asked Morgan Township Trustee Virgil Martin. “They are going to be back next year and the year after that.”
Several of the trustees said their townships simply do not have the extra money. McClure said Ashtabula Township has been extremely frugal and has a cushion, but he’s reluctant to toss it to the commissioners.
“I have this dilemma: We have the money right now, but we may not have it next year,” said Norm Jepson, Saybrook Township trustee.
“At the county level, they seem like they want to penalize the people who saved their money for the rainy day, while they squandered their money like a bunch of drunken sailors,” said John Kusar, Austinburg Township trustee.
Carlo and fellow Commissioner Joseph Moroski attended the meeting, but Carlo did not stay for the discussion. That left Moroski to face the trustees and address their questions. He told them commissioners continue to look for money from other sources, and he said public safety is their No. 1 concern. However, Moroski said there are many areas over which commissioners have no fiscal control because those operations are not funded by the general fund; thus, they are limited as to where they can make cuts.
But Long suggested, after Moroski left, that commissioners take a hard look at the county’s spending for employee benefits. Long said passing on a portion of that expense to the employees could raise the money commissioners need to restore funding for the Sheriff’s Department.
Carlo said Friday she was “disappointed” that trustees would not be supporting the initiative but said commissioners would continue to make public safety their priority and work to find funding for the department.
An effort to pass a resolution from the association, stating it would not provide money to the commissioners, failed to gain support after trustees pointed out the request was made to individual townships, not the association. Not one trustee indicated that the township he or she represented would be sending money to the commissioners.
Sheriff William Johnson was unavailable for comment Friday.