AUSTINTOWN Budget starts with clean slate

Financial challenges remain, the clerk cautioned.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
AUSTINTOWN -- This year marks the first since 2002 that the township didn't carry a loan from the previous year's budget in to the next.
Trustees have approved a motion authorizing Clerk Michael Kurish to borrow $500,000 to meet operating expenses. The money is borrowed against the township's anticipated receipts.
Kurish said the township borrowed $500,000 at the beginning of the year to meet expenses and has already repaid that money with money coming in from the first half of this year's Mahoning County property taxes.
Although trustees have passed the motion allowing Kurish to borrow that same amount again in anticipation of the second half year of property taxes, that won't happen immediately.
"We're not going to borrow before we have to so that we don't incur the interest charges," he said.
No debt
The township's borrowing of money to meet expenses and in anticipation of revenue coming in isn't new, Kurish said, but this year, the township didn't carry its loan from the previous year into 2005. Going into 2003 and 2004, the township carried that debt from the previous year into the next year.
That was due in large part to the loss of money when the township had to repay a portion of the personal property tax in 2002 to Phar-Mor which owned the Tamco Distribution Center.
The township's budget felt those reverberations for the following two budget years.
But Kurish said that doesn't mean the township's financial future is without challenges.
Facing a loss
The township is still facing a loss of money from reductions from the state's Local Government Fund and the anticipated decrease from the state's possible elimination of the tangible property tax. On top of that, hospitalization and worker's compensation costs continue to climb.
Because of tight finances over the past few years, the township hasn't been able to buy many new vehicles for its departments, the clerk said. Consequently, the police fleet, firetrucks and other township vehicles are showing their age.
"We'll need to replace those at some point in the future," Kurish said.
The 2005 general fund revenue budget passed earlier this year was $2,047,000, down from $2.2 million in 2004. Kurish attributed that decrease to fewer tenants in the township-owned Westchester Drive building and the expected reduction in state Local Government Fund money.