By Austin Rust-
Adams County Commissioners Diane Ward, Ty Pell, and Barbara Moore met in regular session Monday, Dec. 23, 2019 to adopt a resolution which appropriated funding to provide for the county’s expenses and expenditures made for/during the fiscal year ending Dec. 31, 2020.
Most of the county departments were flat-funded for 2020, according to Commissioner Ward, which means that they will receive the same amount of funding this year as they did last year. Due to a levy passed in last November’s General Election to fund 9-1-1 dispatch services, the Adams County Sheriff’s Office will no longer require funds raised by the county EMS levy to provide said services, as it had in years before. The appropriation resolution also accounts for and accommodates slight raises which had been mandated for officials elected in 2018 or later.
Annual appropriation amounts in the budget are determined by an estimate of how much revenue the county is expected to have in the next year, Adams County Auditor David Gifford explained, and the funds may be added to or subtracted from as required over the course of the fiscal year.
In recent years, it was expected that major losses in revenue from the closure of Dayton Power & Light (DP&L)’s J.M. Stuart and Killen Station power plants would result in deep budget cuts, but thus far, Adams County has been able to avoid cuts to any of its major departments and services.
Auditor David Gifford explained that “the loss of the power company tax revenue was offset by an increase in property taxes for residential and commercial (property) owners, and also, the hospital sales tax revenue that is now being converted to the (county) general fund.”
“We’re hoping to have a little bit more money this year, because we’re getting sales tax,” added Commissioner Diane Ward. “The sales tax will be going to the Adams County Regional Medical Center (ACRMC) first, and then the county takes it over April 1. We won’t get our first payment until June, so we couldn’t include the total amount we’ll receive in our annual appropriations.”
Commissioner Ward noted that when DP&L’s J.M. Stuart and Killen Stations closed, she was “very, very pleased” to join in a collaborative effort between all of the county’s elected officials to maintain the status quo. “When we had to take that big hit, we didn’t have any layoffs and we were able to keep all of our mandated services that are required by the state. We came out ahead of the game. We were afraid we’d be in the red, but we came out with over $1 million at the end of this year. It was really good government budget management – I watched it like a hawk.”
Looking forward, the Adams County Commissioners expressed optimistic outlooks for the year ahead, and explained that several large projects to further the development of Adams County are expected to make significant progress in 2020. The Adams County Workforce Development & Training Center and the Winchester Industrial Park, for example, are just two of those projects.
The Adams County Economic & Community Development Office (ECD) and Adams County Board of Commissioners received word late last November that a $2.3 million grant had been approved by the Ohio Development Services Agency (ODSA) to provide for the creation of a Workforce Development & Training Center in Adams County. This center will soon be located within the former Prather’s IGA building in West Union, which is to be renovated in early 2020. The grant awarded in 2019 will fund these renovations and the purchase of machinery and other equipment need to train adults in welding, licensed practical nursing, certified nursing assistant, and computer numeric control (milling, tooling, lathing, blueprint reading, and drafting) courses.
Once opened, the Adams County Workforce Development & Training Center will serve Adams, Brown, Pike, and Scioto Counties, with a capacity of up to 40 full-time certification students (in CNC, Welding, and LPN courses) and 100 short-term students (in assistant nursing courses). For this project, Adams County and Scioto County drafted a Memorandum of Understanding, which lays out the courses to be offered and the rental agreement. The Scioto County Career Technical Center has agreed to provide training, office-related funding, and personnel to the training center, and Adams County will supply the building at a low cost; rent will be sufficient to cover building maintenance costs, and existing county maintenance staff will absorb any additional duties.
Holly Johnson, the Director of the Adams County Economic & Community Development Office, said that a major goal of this adult training center was to build on to the opportunities that Adams County already offers to its residents, with the hope that it will attract jobs to and keep jobs in the county by providing a skilled workforce to prospective employers.
The Winchester Industrial Park project, currently in development, aims to transform roughly 60 acres near a major route traversing Adams County, State Route 32, into a space for new business. Moving with the full support of the Adams County Board of Commissioners, the Adams County ECD Office continues to pursue grant funds and build partnerships with prospective park tenants.