Mill Creek park budget to be discussed in Saturday meeting

March 16, 2013 at 12:04a.m.

BOARDMAN

Mill Creek MetroParks has a lot of projects for 2013, but the plans all hinge on passage of a budget, which could happen today.

The proposed 2013 park-district budget is $12 million; the district employs 61 full-time, 67 part-time and more than 100 seasonal workers.

The park commissioners are to meet in special session at 9 a.m. in Pioneer Pavilion to discuss the 2013 budget and a vote is set, according to the agenda.

Parks commissioner Bob Durick said the meeting is set for today because the budget deadline is in two weeks, and because of scheduling conflicts with the other two commissioners.

The park district has seen a dip in revenue and cuts in its budget from the state level, said Kevin Smith, administrative director and treasurer. But with the help of grants, projects have had their funding matched in most instances, leaving hardly any cost out of the parks’ general fund.

But the budget was a challenge, Smith said, with the total loss in revenue in the general fund and the replacement reserve fund — used exclusively for capital improvement projects — totaling $413,944, according to tentative 2013 budget figures.

“When we got those numbers, we were not pleased,” Smith said. “We had to make some significant cuts.”

One of the problems is decreasing revenue from the source of the replacement reserve fund, the lease of land to drill in Clinton sandstone gas wells surrounding the park.

“At one time, we used to get about $400,000 for that fund [from drilling revenue]; now, we’re looking at about $100,000,” Smith said. When administrators sat down with the numbers from last year and the revenue numbers from this year, they had to decide where the cuts could be made.

The biggest chunk was to park operations, specifically properties and salaries, a total of $258,280.

“We have not replaced people, and the people we needed to replace in a position were brought in at a much lower rate,” Smith said. “But we didn’t have to lay anyone off and the restructuring has really been a big help.”

Restructuring of the employee makeup of the park was introduced by executive director Dennis Miller as part of the 10-year strategic plan. The first move made was the hiring of Samantha Villella as the new community-engagement director. Villella will be making $57,200 annually, which is lower than the salary would have been had the MetroParks hired a recreation director.

“What we did was ... instead of bringing in a recreation director to be [working with] Samantha, we ended up promoting a part-timer to recreation- and programs-manager at a lower salary,” Smith said. “It’s just putting the right people in the right spot to get the most bang for the buck.”

Reductions to general expenses totaling $108,316 were made, the majority from the worker’s compensation program. The MetroParks had some claims dropped, which helped the budget.

A fund for emergencies was reduced by $70,000 as well.

Despite budget cuts, projects are being done within the park with the help of grants from the Ohio Department of Transportation. ODOT provided a 100 percent match for the resurfacing of Robinson Hill Drive at a cost of more than $100,000. The grant helped with a capital- improvements fund that is down $237,347 from 2012 numbers.

But the board might be hesitant to approve the requested $659,150 for projects, which Smith said was a total that had been whittled down by priority of projects. Some of the work department heads requested was the start of refurbishment of the Ford Nature Center, on the tentative budget with a cost of $100,000, and the completion of the Wick Recreation Area, at a cost of $250,000. The money would come from the replacement reserve fund.

“I don’t know that the board will be comfortable spending that kind of money, but we [department heads and administration] felt these were the projects that we could get done this year,” Smith said. “We’ll do whatever we can do.”

As for the future of revenue within the park, plans to put a parks levy on the ballot in May 2014 are in the works, but no numbers have been set, and a levy committee has not yet met to discuss it, Smith said. The levy would not be a point of discussion at the budget meeting Saturday, he said.