Oppose Senator Seitz Proposal in the Ohio Budget

Senator Peterson,

As a County Commissioner I oppose the Seitz proposal.

It removes local control from County Commissioners, and it eliminates the current statutory and alternative formulas allowed to be used by a County. Counties in general, will receive less money to provide the same services to the Citizens of Ohio. This proposal is coming on the back of the 50% LGF, Local Government Fund, reduction that Counties absorbed over the past two years. This is a mandate to fix a set rate for revenue that a County may receive. If only it were easy to fix the expenses for providing quality services to my constituents, I would not be sending this note. I feel this proposal strips the last tool left to generate County revenue, and severely ties the hands of local officials.

Please oppose the proposal of Senator Seitz.

Commissioner Jeremy Shaffer

Senator Seitz’s proposal would do the following:

 

·         Eliminate all existing statutory and alternative formulas effective January 1, 2014.

 

·         Establish a new default or statutory formula, and provide generally that the county general fund share of that formula would be fixed at 30%, unless an alternative formula was approved providing for a different share. The amendment also provides that an alternative formula cannot result in a lesser share to the county or largest city without their consent. This effectively fixes the county share at 30%. 

 

·         Eliminate the requirement that the board of commissioners and the largest city approve any alternative formula.

 

·         Provide that in any county in which the largest city is getting constitutional casino money and in which this new statutory formula would provide more money to the largest city in that county than it received in calendar year 2013, 50% of that additional money will be credited back to the county if the county would receive less money under the new statutory formula than it received in calendar year 2013.

 

·         Hold harmless at SFY 2013 levels 23 mostly small rural counties that received the benefit of a hold harmless provision under the current state budget.