Treasurer's office will return to full staff

By NORMAN LEIGH
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
LISBON -- After about a month and a half of operating on a reduced schedule, the Columbiana County Treasurer's office will return to a full five-day timetable next week.
"I have found it impossible to properly serve the public by [having the office] working only three days per week," Treasurer Linda Bolon said Friday.
Bolon adopted the three-day schedule in mid-May, saying she didn't have enough money to have the office fully staffed Monday through Friday.
Her staff has not been reporting for work on Mondays and Fridays since the belt-tightening began. Bolon has been the only person staffing the office on those days.
Tax collections
But with collections coming due on property taxes, Bolon said her office will be extremely busy.
Having it fully open only three days a week would be an inconvenience for members of the public who often come to her office to pay their taxes in person.
Without a full staff five days a week during the collection period, taxpayers would be faced with long lines.
"I don't feel the public deserves that," Bolon said.
She added that she intends to maintain the five-day schedule until Sept. 5, the deadline for property tax payments.
Money her department has saved by being on the reduced staff schedule for the past few weeks should allow her to operate on a full timetable until the tax deadline, she said.
After Sept. 5, however, she'll have to weigh returning to the reduced schedule, or possibly furloughing all her staff, leaving herself as the only person in the office, Bolon said.
Bolon's staffing jam is the result of a fiscal crisis now gripping county government, whose expenses are outpacing revenues.
Like many county departments, the 2002 budget for the treasurer's office was dramatically reduced by commissioners to try to make ends meet.
The treasurer's office was appropriated $153,263 this year, compared to its 2001 expenditures of $198,633.
Other departments also have been forced to make similar cutbacks.
Earlier this week, commissioners sought fiscal relief by imposing a 0.5 percent sales tax increase that will bring in about $3 million annually.
Collections on the imposed tax will begin Sept. 1 and the county could begin receiving checks from the increase in December.
But a group of county residents opposed to imposing taxes is promising to mount a referendum effort that would block collections of the increase.