Local leaders meet with Ohio Township Association
Courtesy of Nathan Brown
The talk these days in Columbus is all about the proposed budget by Governor Kasich. The proposed budget has many parts that will directly affect local government with changes coming in the form of lowering income tax, broadening sales tax, adding a service tax, and increasing the severance tax.
Local government officials want to make sure that the proposed budget will not cut funding any more than they have already been slashed.
Highland County Township Association President Tim Sheeley, Union Township Trustees Joe Fraysier and Nathan Brown, and Highland County Commissioner Jeremy Shaffer traveled to the Ohio Township Association office in Blacklick, Ohio to discuss what the effects from this budget could be on local Townships.
Matthew DeTemple, executive director of the Ohio Township Association, and Heidi Fought, director of governmental affairs for the OTA, provided updates on what they have been working on in Columbus and what they think the outcomes will be.
Topics of conversation were how the increase in the Local Government Fund will or won’t really affect townships, expansion of Medicaid and the effects on hospitals, and in general how local government funding has been cut in the previous few years.
Ohio townships maintain over 41,000 miles of road, more than anyone else in the state.
Township government, especially rural townships, carries the majority of this work with smaller budgets than any of the others.
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Brown, also vice president of Highland County Farm Bureau, let the OTA staff know just how important these roads are to agriculture, which is Ohio’s No. 1 industry.
Being watchful of what is happening in Columbus and being willing to act on those things that are being proposed are critical. Every citizen should be following what is going on and be ready to take action because legislators don’t always realize how things really affect the people.
If you don’t believe it affects you, talk to your local township trustees and ask them how their budget is now compared to five years ago, and how they manage to continue to maintain the workload.
The Ohio Township Association is a statewide organization dedicated to the promotion and preservation of township government in Ohio. The association was founded on June 28, 1928, and is organized in 87 Ohio counties. The association has more than 5,200 active members, made up of trustees and fiscal officers from Ohio’s 1,308 townships, and more than 4,000 associate members.