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Boardman Township: Officials unveil financial database
BOARDMAN
Township trustees are putting together a five-year plan but caution department leaders that they cannot guarantee all proposals will be funded.
“We might not be able to have every thing that everybody wants,” said Trustee Larry Moliterno at a retreat Monday for trustees and department officials.
Fiscal Officer William Leicht and Assistant Fiscal Officer George Platton unveiled a comprehensive financial database that trustees will use to create the plan.
“Our template is built so we can take every item and plug into each departmental budget to see exactly what the impact will be on each and every request,” Leicht said.
But Leicht also pointed out two variables in his current plan.
“No. 1, what’s the impact of any future union negotiations?” Leicht said. He said he did not include any employee raises in his projection.
“If we have union contracts coming due in 2014 and 2013, what do we anticipate?” he asked.
The township will begin negotiations with the Ohio Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association for patrol and ranking police officers in December. By then, Ohio voters will have decided if Senate Bill 5, a measure that limits public workers’ collective-bargaining rights, remains law.
Another variable, Leicht said, is the outcome of a 3-mill, five-year renewal levy for the township’s general fund.
That levy, originally approved by voters in the early 1980s, generates about $1.26 million annually and costs $39.14 annually for the owner of a home valued at $100,000.
Leicht said he included that levy money in his projection.
Trustees are expected to make a decision on the five-year plan in December.
Trustees also heard from the fire, road and police departments.
Fire Chief George Brown said the department’s goals are to replace four staff vehicles, replace a fire engine, develop an EMS service and re-start the volunteer firefighter program, which would cost about $25,000 to pay for volunteer training and equipment.
Brown said 75 percent of the 4,000 annual calls the department gets are for medical emergencies.
All of the township’s firefighters are trained as first responders, but in addition to that 13 are paramedics and six are EMTs, he said.
“This would allow the fire department to transport [patients] and run an ambulance to the scene instead of a $500,000 fire truck,” he said.
Boardman residents would not have to pay for the ambulance service if their insurance does not cover the entire cost or if they are uninsured, he said.
The cost to start an EMS service is projected at $411,935.60 in 2012 and that includes leasing the ambulance, Brown said.
The first year the service is expected to bring in $407,239 in revenue and the following four years, it is projected to make a profit.
At the end of five years, Brown said, the program would pay for itself and have a profit of about $490,000 to use for capital improvements.
Moliterno said that the EMS program would likely be a longer process to begin than other proposals and said he would like to have public meetings about it.
Road Superintendent Larry Wilson told trustees in the future he would like to collaborate between other townships, municipalities and the counties to bid out for road paving.
This year, the township is paving less than three miles of the 146 miles of road it maintains.
Police Chief Jack Nichols said that the department is on track to hire positions promised to the public based on approval of a 3.85-mill, five-year additional police levy, which the township received in August.
Trustees had said they would hire 10 additional full-time police officers and other support staff over the next two years.
The department currently has 49 sworn police officers, including the chief. David Sheely, of Mineral Ridge, was sworn in Oct. 12, and Nick Antonucci, of Boardman, and Bill Bowers, of Pittsburgh, have accepted conditional offers of employment. Bowers accepted the offer at the trustees’ Monday retreat.
A police officer starting salary is about $33,000 annually.
Also at the retreat, trustees hired Lynette Veauthier as a full-time payroll clerk to replace the current clerk who is retiring.
Her starting annual salary will be about $29,000.