Girard city closer to exiting fiscal emergency

By Robert Guttersohn

rguttersohn@vindy.com

Girard

The fiscal commission on Monday voted unanimously to petition the state auditor’s office for the city to exit fiscal emergency, bringing Girard one step closer to ending the decadelong financial status.

Tisha Turner, a state auditor, said the city is $1.8 million in the black and the five-year forecast projects the city to stay in the black for the next five years.

The fiscal commission’s chairwoman, Sharon Hanrahan, said after the vote that today she will send a formal petition letter to the Ohio Auditor of State’s office, which will begin the process toward terminating the fiscal-emergency status.

She explained that most likely by mid-February, an additional set of auditors — a fresh set of eyes on the city’s books — will look over the city’s numbers and budget projections to ensure they are correct.

And if it all checks out OK, “the commission ceases to exist,” Hanrahan said.

The news brought silence to the city’s old courtroom. Minus the fiscal commission and city Auditor Sam Zirafi stretched out on a front-row bench, the room was empty.

“The city had a lot of help along the way,” said Mayor James Melfi, also a commission member.

Melfi can remember without thinking the exact date the city fell into fiscal emergency: Aug. 8, 2001. He said it was because it was his mother’s birthday.

“I wasn’t happy that birthday,” he said.

Later that month, a seven-member fiscal commission was put in place to guide the city out of fiscal emergency.

He thanked the fiscal commission’s two citizens who have been on the board since day one: John Masternick and Bob Delisio.

The two said they agreed to join the commission out of a sense of duty.

“We’re both businessmen,” Delisio said. “There were the same issues [in the city] that relate to business.”

The city was in the hole $2.2 million in 2001. Over the next six years, the city cut policemen and other city workers. The workers who stayed had to take on more tasks.

By 2006, the city was again in the black and ready to petition the state to exit from fiscal emergency with a $700,000 surplus. Then the city lost its biggest employer Indalex, which laid off all 300 of its workers in early 2008.

Morale was so low on the commission that Masternick said it seemed the city would never emerge from fiscal emergency.

But then V&M Star began expanding into Girard’s side of the Youngstown/Girard border. The income tax for the project was split between the two cities and infused Girard’s budget with enough money that in 2010, the city was $50,000 in the black in its general fund.

The city ended 2011 with A $600,000 surplus.

At Monday’s meeting, the motion to send the petition to the auditor was moved by Delisio and seconded by Masternick.

“It’s my pleasure to second that,” Masternick said.