CHAMPION Trustee fills administrator position

The township has about 40 employees and a $4 million budget.
CHAMPION --Jeffrey Hovanic has resigned as trustee to take the new position of township administrator.
The position will pay $50,000 a year and offer full benefits and three weeks' vacation, said Trustee Nancy Shafer.
Hovanic, who was two years into his second term, is expected to resign as bailiff for Warren Municipal Judge Thomas Gysegem and begin full time for the township Jan. 18. His contract with Champion is for five years.
"I will help with the people's business of Champion Township," Hovanic said. "Day-to-day operations, fire, EMS, police, roads, zoning, grant issues."
Projects being considered include a grant application for funds to clean up the CSC industrial property. The township recently applied for $70,000 to build a spur to the section of the Western Reserve Greenway Trail recently completed through the township. And expanding town hall space may also eventually become necessary.
"The trick will be to do it at no cost to the taxpayers," Hovanic said.
Because of the limited amount of space available now, Hovanic's first office as township administrator may be in a trailer, he said.
Need has grown
Champion has not had a full-time administrator since the early 1980s, Shafer said.
"The daily affairs of our township have gotten to the point where we aren't able to stay on top of them as well as we should," she said.
The township has about 40 employees and a $4 million budget. Shafer said the administrator will be responsible for applying for grants and supervising township departments and employees.
In the public sector, creating this type of management position would be common sense, she said.
"If you had a business with a $4 million yearly income, you would want some daily oversight," she said.
Filling trustee seat
Shafer's term on the board of trustees is up in December, leaving it up to incoming trustee Tim Downs and Trustee Keith Bowser to appoint someone to fill the two years remaining in Hovanic's term.
At a meeting Tuesday, trustees also learned that the man they had selected to replace Fire Chief Ron Thompson, who left in October for a position in Perrysburg, has declined to take the job.
Trustees now intend to fill the position using a recruiting service, Shafer said.