Commissioners OK sheriff's vehicles, broadband contribution; hear reports on permissive sales tax, natural gas plan

A busy Oct. 30 meeting saw Highland County commissioners David Daniels, Brad Roades and Terry Britton approve new vehicles for the Sheriff’s Office, hear a positive report on permissive sales tax receipts and agree to contribute $250,000 toward a broadband project, among other matters.  

Following a meeting with Highland County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Jennifer Schinkal and administrative assistant Shana Reffitt, commissioners agreed to approve the purchase of four new vehicles for the HCSO.

First, commissioners moved to approve the purchase of two 2024 Dodge Durangos from Jake Sweeney Automotive at a cost of $40,919 each. The two vehicles will be used as patrol cars, Schinkal said.

“Currently, they have three on the lot,” Schinkal said. “After that, if we went with this company, we would have to order the 2025, and they'll be in mid-next year.”

Daniels asked which vehicles will be “retired” with this purchase, and Schinkal said they had two vehicles with high mileage to retire.

“We got rid of all the Chargers in the auction, because those were dated from 2012 to 2014, and they weren't even safe to put out on patrol,” Schinkal said. “We currently have a 2016 in use, and it’s got 182,000 miles on it. We were looking to replace that, and we have another 2016 that's got 163,000 miles that's on the road right now.”

Britton also asked about "upfitting” the vehicles, and Schinkal said that Parr Public Safety Equipment is already lined up to get the cars “completely ready to put on the road as far as striping and radios.

“We will have to install our in-car computer, and that'll be it,” she said.

Also approved was the purchase of a 2020 Chevrolet Equinox and 2025 Chevrolet Blazer from Jerry Haag Motors for the HCSO clerk and the sheriff, respectively, using funds from the Clerk of Courts budget.

“Ike Hodson had offered to purchase a couple vehicles for the office,” Schinkal said. “Currently, every day, we run court papers up to the court and do pay-ins and things like that. Our clerk that's at the front office does all of that, and she drives her personal vehicle right now.

“We do not have an unmarked, just errands or going to training, vehicle.”

The Chevy Blazer would be for Sheriff Randy Sanders, whose current patrol car is being upfitted for the new K-9 officer, Schinkal told commissioners.

“The sheriff's going to give his vehicle, and then he's going to drive an unmarked vehicle with just lights, and we're just going to put a radio in it for him,” Schinkal said.

Commissioners and Schinkal added a thank-you to Hodson for his “gracious” offer.

“Ike has been very generous and helpful to our office to do that,” Schinkal said.

In another meeting with a local public official, Highland County Auditor Alex Butler reported that the county is on pace to break its record-high permissive sales tax collection for a fifth straight year, as they have now topped $8.1 million in 10 months.

The October 2024 receipt total is $788,841.88, a 2.69-percent increase over last year’s totals in the same month ($768,164.35). For the year, the county has collected 4.24-percent more in the same 10-month period, as the total thus far for 2024 is $8,139,669.87.

“We will exceed last year,” Butler said.

In other discussion:

• After several years of consideration, commissioners voted 3-0 to approve a resolution to direct $250,000 of the county’s Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery Fund payment for the Broadband Expansion Project by Southern Ohio Communication Services (SOCS), as well as a grant agreement contract with the company.

Daniels said that this particular payment will go toward SOCS’s broadband expansion in southeastern Highland County “in the Elmville area, down over into Concord Township.”

SOCS had submitted a request for funding from the county, using their American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds, back in 2022 and returned with updates on their broadband expansion progress in September 2023 and again in August 2024.

As of August,, the SOCS representatives indicated that any money from the county would be put toward 336 residences, which are in a “completely unserved” area of Highland County, that were not covered by previously awarded federal funding. That will cost approximately $2.6 million, based on the SOCS estimates, and in August, the company representatives said they had “funding for none of that.”  

• Commissioners voted 3-0 to approve a contract with the City of Hillsboro for an agreement on payment distribution for Municipal Court clerks.

"We currently pay a portion of the clerk’s salary for Hillsboro Municipal Court,” Daniels said. “Over the past several years, I think that there's been some discrepancies about how that's happened, so we have entered into a more formal arrangement with them.

“This agreement outlines that process and how they'll submit their time and how it'll be approved.”

Britton added that there is a “60/40 split” for payment between the city and county.

As previously reported, the Ohio Auditor’s Office issued a finding for recovery in the amount of $20,054 earlier this year in connection with the city’s 2022 audit, after a municipal court clerk was overpaid for unused leave upon retirement.

• Commissioners announced that they are seeking applicants to fill two positions on the Board of DD, for three-year terms.

“There are some requirements for being able to serve on that board,” Daniels said. “We'll have a questionnaire that's going to go up on our website.”

• Mitch Given gave a presentation regarding The Empowerment Alliance (TEA), a nonprofit organization working “to make Ohio the nation's low-cost energy capital by harnessing the full potential of natural gas while fostering lower emissions, economic growth and cost savings,” according to a handout from Given.

Given said he was not attending the meeting “to ask anything of” commissioners but to explain “the overall situation statewide.

“Basically, the problem that we have in Ohio is we have a lot of natural gas capacity with the shale development in eastern Ohio, but that's largely trapped in that part of the state,” Given said. “In this part of the state, there's not a lot of natural gas capacity when it comes to pipeline. I know there's certain parts of the county where you could use more natural gas — I was reading recently about the Leesburg Industrial Park and areas like that, where you need more natural gas — and unfortunately, that's a common story throughout Ohio.

“Our goal is to develop a strategy to bring natural gas and electric generation to other parts of the state and make Ohio the the affordable energy capital of the world, really, of the United States, because we have so much gas here.”

Given’s handout says that “Clean, Affordable, and Reliable Energy is key to Ohio’s future,” and he told commissioners that “natural gas is the number-one driver of lower emissions;” that “the average family, if they have access to natural gas, saves about $2,500 a year if they're not having to operate on electricity or propane;” and that the United States has “100 years of supply of natural gas … to meet all of our needs with our existing use.

“Ohio ranks sixth in production, and we rank seventh in storage of natural gas,” Given said. “Ohio is the third-largest manufacturing state, so we're fortunate to have as much gas as we do, but we have a lot of industrial parks and areas that the lines just don't extend out to, that we need to find a way to get natural gas to those areas.”

According to Given, TEA is seeking to “unite businesses, government entities and consumer groups in a collaborative effort” with two missions: to “expand Ohio’s natural gas pipeline distribution network” and to “develop more natural gas-fired power plants around the state.

“I live in the Columbus area, and we have a lot of development with data centers and things like that coming in, and there's not enough electricity to supply the need,” Given said. “I know in other parts of the state, that's the case as well, so we're working with the Legislature and the governor to develop a plan to remedy that.”

One way to help would be “lowering the tax rate on private pipeline developers serving Ohio customers,” Given’s handout says.

“Ohio's pipeline tax is 88 percent on pipeline companies, so that really drives down incentive,” Given said. “We believe that Ohio should look at lowering that tax rate. The LDCs [local distribution companies] pay 25-percent tax rate, as opposed to the pipeline companies, but we would advocate that that rate only be given to on projects where the end users are in Ohio.

“We can do some other things with revolving loan funds for easements and also maybe looking at the ‘used and useful’ laws on replacing existing pipelines and upgrading and some of the restrictions that the LDCs have, but those are some of the smaller things. I think the biggest issue is incentivizing private investors to develop more pipelines.”

Given added that Ohio is in the process of “retiring 20,000 megawatts of coal-fired power plants” and is “simply not replacing that power generation.

“Ohio used to be, 10 years ago, an energy exporter. and now we're importing about 20 to 25 percent of our electricity from other states, which is crazy to think when you know that we have enough natural gas to produce our own electricity here in Ohio,” Given said.

He told commissioners that “Ohio needs to consider what direction we want to go in the future with regard to power generation” and stop incentivizing so much solar development.

“Our goal is make Ohio an energy exporter and identify areas targeted throughout the state where we can locate natural gas-fired power plants,” Given said. “It really comes down to encouraging private investment and pipeline development to feed industrial development, to feed power plant development.”

Given’s handout says that a proposed solution is to “develop a strategic plan for Ohio by identifying specific sites for power plants.

“We’re working with the administration and with the legislature,” he told commissioners. “I’ve talked to [State Senator] Shane Wilkin. We're in pretty regular contact with them, just looking at Ohio's future, because we've never really had a true energy plan. We've kind of hodge-podged it together.

“What we want to do is to develop a concise energy plan looking forward 10 years and saying, ‘Where do we want to go as a state, and what does that energy mix look like?’”

Given encouraged commissioners to share “any input that you have on this” moving forward.

“We want to have a broad coalition of manufacturers, community leaders, commissioners come together, and we'll probably kind of pull something together here in early 2025 for those who want to be involved in that process,” he said. “We just want to get out there and meet with you and seek your input on the plan.”

Commissioners thanked Given for the information, with Daniels saying they would “be more than happy to” help “if there's some way that we feel we can be useful.”

• At 10 a.m., commissioners conducted a bid opening for repairs and line replacement at the Rolling Acres Wastewater System.

The county received three bids: Unger Construction, $399,600; Cody Wheeler, $418,000; and Holden Construction, $546,840.  

“The apparent low bidder would be Unger,” Daniels said. “We will review these and make sure that they meet the specifications, and we will probably make an award next week.”

• Highland County mobility manager Carl Rayburn reported that the Work Ride Solutions program — through which FRS is offering free rides to and from work, now through Nov. 1, thanks to a national grant — has exceeded 100 participants.

“This will be the last week to sign up,” Rayburn said. “Hopefully we'll get some more by Friday, because we can, once they're signed up, use it for 30 days into next month still. That program is taking off and doing well.”

FRS is also offering free rides to vote, either at the Board of Elections for early voting or at precincts on Election Day.

“We've been getting plenty of calls on that, so we're definitely helping more folks get in to early vote, and some signed up for their poll stations on Election Day,” he said.

• Outside of their regular meeting, commissioners were scheduled to hold a work session on the county policy and procedure manual with Human Resources manager and legal counsel Brett Geary of Clemans, Nelson and Associates; and a work session with McCarty Associates to discuss Administration Building renovations.

In other action, resolutions approved, each by a 3-0 vote, were:

• A budget modification within the 1000 County General Fund in the amount of $5,000.

• An additional appropriation from unanticipated revenue within the 1000 DD – Help Me Grow Fund in the amount of $3,000.

• Two separate resolutions that both reflected an additional appropriation from unappropriated funds within the 2470 County General Fund in the amount of $142.75.

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