Commissioners discuss Issue 2, permissive sales tax receipts; McClain FFA shares Ag Issues presentation

Highland County commissioners Brad Roades, Terry Britton and David Daniels discussed their support of Issue 2, heard an update on a record-high permissive sales tax report and enjoyed a presentation from McClain FFA students during their Wednesday, April 2 meeting.
 
Wednesday marked the commissioners’ final meeting in their third-floor conference room at the Administration Building for the foreseeable future, as their office space will be under construction until at least August.

“Starting this next Wednesday, we will have to conduct our meetings at Southern State, and we’ll be there until this floor is completely finished,” Roades said. “We’re looking forward to it. It’s been a rough couple weeks of moving out 50 years of stuff up here.”

During the meeting, commissioners met with Highland County Engineer Chris Fauber to discuss Issue 2 on the primary ballot this May, with the officials asking voters to support this measure for a constitutional amendment regarding public infrastructure capital improvements by permitting the issuance of general obligation bonds.

“This issue is really important for all counties, actually, but especially ours,” Britton said. “It’s a renewal for the Ohio Public Works program, and what that is, is it's funding that counties get for essential infrastructure projects. We use that every year.

“If we would lose this, it would be pretty devastating, I think, for the county — all counties, because it's a statewide issue.”

According to the certified explanation, if approved, the “amendment authorizes the State of Ohio to issue general obligation bonds to pay for or help local governments pay for public infrastructure capital improvements. Projects would be limited to roads and bridges, wastewater treatment systems, water supply systems, solid waste disposal facilities and storm water and sanitary collection, storage and treatment facilities, including real property or interests in real property, facilities and equipment related or incidental thereto, and the cost of acquisition, construction, reconstruction, expansion, improvement, planning and equipping.”

The amendment is a renewal of an existing provision “authorizing the State of Ohio to issue bonds to finance public infrastructure capital improvements for local governments through the State Capital Improvements Program.” It includes language to “limit the total principal amount of the state general obligations issued under the amendment to no more than $2.5 billion over a 10-year period.”

If Issue 2 passes, “the amendment would take effect immediately,” the explanation says.

“I'm speaking for myself, but I support this wholeheartedly,” Britton said.

Since fiscal year 2017, Fauber said the county has had 16 projects, including wastewater and street projects in Hillsboro, street projects in Greenfield, a sewer project in Leesburg and road projects in the county.  In the current 10-year cycle, the county and its municipalities have received $37,780,863 in funding, according to the engineer.

“Everybody's eligible,” Fauber said. “You get the townships, the cities, the villages, and typically, our portion in the county, over the last 10 years, we average around $600 [thousand] to $700,000 a year that it comes in as grant money. They also have zero-percent loans as part of that, which you're able to take out to a term that's up to 30 years.”

Fauber explained that representatives from the county and its municipalities help determine which local projects are selected each year.

“We have a committee, and we meet and we rate the project,” he said. “We get a representative from the villages, from the city, from the commissioners’ office and myself, so we get to kind of rate what we feel is the priority in our county going to the district.

“We’ve been fortunate most of the time to get at least one, if not two, projects come out of our county.”

For the county specifically, Fauber said it “subsidizes our paving program,” allowing them to make repairs to county roads.

“Our current project right now we've got is New Market Road,” he said. “We're in the process of going all the way across county, so this last phase of this will get us up to Prospect Road, which was already completed prior to my term.

“It’s a big deal. If we would lose that, it really puts a damper on our projects, for sure. I would definitely ask for everybody to be in support of that.”

In response to a question from Roades, Fauber said the cost per mile is approximately “$200,000, if you’re doing reconstruction.”

Daniels added that voting in favor of the issue will not lead to increased taxes and that this existing plan “has been in place for 30 or 40 years.

“It’s a renewal of a bond program for the state of Ohio that has to be reauthorized by the citizens every 10 years,” Daniels said. “It’s one of those issues that has got direct money coming back to us, back to the county and back to the taxpayers, that they give an opportunity to drive on.”

Fauber added that since the program began, it has funded a total of 111 projects in the county.  

In unrelated discussion during their appointment with Fauber, commissioners voted 3-0 via resolution to authorize the engineer to purchase one new 2025 Chevrolet 2500 HD Custom Crew Cab 4x4, not to exceed a total of $50,516.

“We had a resolution last year to buy a truck, and we just couldn't get it built forever,” Fauber said. “This one was already built on a lot, and everybody’s saying they're going to go up anytime now. We were trying to get ahead [of the tariffs].”

In another meeting with a local elected official, Highland County Auditor Alex Butler announced record-high permissive sales tax receipts for March 2025, with the county collecting nearly $1 million for the month for January sales.

The $960,161.96 total is believed to be the highest amount collected for one month, including the totals for all 60 months in the current five-year record-breaking streak. It is a 7.97-percent increase over the same month in 2024.

However, Butler cautioned that the total is “an outlier” and should not be an indication of continued increases this year.

“This number is much higher than anticipated, than we historically see,” Butler said. “I want to explain the reason for that. A portion of what we receive each month is late payments from the previous month, so a portion of late payments from December is included in this amount.

“Historically, where we are and what we receive in February and March, this number is an outlier, and one reason is because we're receiving a larger number of late distribution from economic activity in December. I anticipate this number to go down by $150 [thousand], $200,000 next month, to get back in line with what we historically see.”

Year to date, the county is ahead 1.67 percent over the same three months in 2024, as the county has topped $2.5 million thus far in 2025 ($2,566,184.39).

At Butler’s recommendation, commissioners also voted to remain in the County Commissioners Association of Ohio’s group rating plan for workers’ compensation.

“The total savings will be $17,655,” Butler said.

In other discussion:

• Commissioners enjoyed a presentation by McClain FFA students and Agricultural Issues team members Brooklyn Baldwin, Addison Goddard, Avery Murphy, Reese Roble, Maguire Ross, Olivia Stegbauer and Toree Wareikis, who attended Wednesday’s meeting with their adviser Madison Schumacher.

The group performed their presentation — a skit they have memorized, with the format of a live TV news broadcast — for commissioners. The same group also presented a skit on a different topic a year ago, later going on to win a national title for their project on social media in agriculture.

“Get ready to be wowed,” Baldwin told commissioners Wednesday.

Commissioners gave the group a round of applause after their presentation, saying the FFA students “made their day.”    

• Commissioners recognized several representatives of Highland County Job & Family Services with a proclamation in honor of Child Abuse Prevention Month. For more, see: https://highlandcountypress.com/news/april-proclaimed-child-abuse-preve….

• Commissioners made the following approvals, each by a 3-0 vote:

— A resolution appointing Fred Yochum as the Highland County Trustee OneOhio Representative, effective immediately, for a term of three years, April 2, 2025 to April 2, 2028.

— An additional appropriation from unappropriated funds within the 4220 Airport Capital Improvement Fund in the amount of $5,219.87.

— A change order for fire sealant of the elevator pump room of the new records storage building.

For more from Wednesday's meeting, go to: 

https://highlandcountypress.com/news/april-proclaimed-child-abuse-preve…

and

https://highlandcountypress.com/news/commissioners-issue-national-crime….

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