Highland County commissioners review 2025 budget numbers, anticipated foster care costs

Highland County Auditor Alex Butler submitted the estimated resources for fiscal year 2025 during Highland County commissioners’ Dec. 2 meeting, which also included a discussion with Highland County Job & Family Services Director Jeremy Ratcliff on the Children Services agency’s needs moving into the next year.

The meeting was held Monday at 1 p.m., instead of their usual Wednesday at 9 a.m. time, due to staff attending the County Commissioners Association of Ohio’s winter conference this week.

Butler has calculated the county’s resources for 2025 at $16,750,000, an increase over 2024’s $14 million.

The figures submitted by Butler included $2,650,000 for real estate property taxes; $9.5 million for permissive sales tax; $620,000 in casino revenue; $95,000 for PILOT [Payment in Lieu of Taxes]; $400,000 in local government funds; $1 million in fees; and $2,485,000 in other receipts.  

With the exception of local government funds ($500,000 in 2024) and fees ($1.1 million last year), all of the totals are increased over 2024, while Butler pointed out the PILOT is a new addition.

As previously reported, the Ohio Department of Development in September issued an “order establishing service payment for tax year 2024” for New Market Solar I.

“We will receive our first PILOT payment from solar activity in the county next year, and I anticipate that to be around $95,000,” Butler said. “As years go on, we'll add to that number as more solar projects become active.”

For the overall picture, Butler said he anticipated permissive sales tax receipts — which have seen record highs over the past five years — to “plateau at best,” plus potential “fluctuation with the fees” collected from county offices with the real estate market.

“That’s a conservative number,” Butler said. “Hope for best, plan for the worst, so to speak. We want to be conservative with our revenue numbers and budget conservatively as well.”

In addition to discussing revenue, Butler told commissioners that they “will need to find some places on the expense side of the budget to see if” anticipated requests from the Children Services agency “can be satisfied.”

The county auditor pointed out there will be no “revenue coming in” to offset foster care costs in 2025 after a proposed five-year, 0.9-mill renewal levy for Children Services failed, for a third consecutive time, in the Nov. 5 general election. A proposed five-year, one-mill replacement levy for the agency failed in the Nov. 7, 2023 general election. A subsequent attempt to return to the previous 0.9 millage, through a levy issue on the March 19 primary ballot, was also voted down.

Commissioners said in a letter to the CCAO in October that “the anticipated cost to the general fund will exceed $1.3 million, nearly 10 percent of the total general fund budget,” with the levy not available to help offset foster care placement costs.

Ratcliff added Monday that in speaking with the public, he realizes there is “a general understanding that we have a dedicated funding source to pay foster care bills.

“We do not, at JFS, have a state or federal dedicated foster care funding source,” Ratcliff said. “Locally, we had the levy revenue, which will not be realized next calendar year now. As we've been discussing the impact of this over the last several months, I am anticipating a $1.3 [million] to $1.5 million budget request from the general fund for calendar year ’25.

“We divert as much money as we can from other social service activities, from staffing resources to hard services to senior citizens and children in care, to pay foster care bills.”

In 2023, placement costs were $3.8 million. Ratcliff said the anticipated total for 2024 was $4.2 million.

“That's about a 10-percent increase,” Ratcliff said. “I don't see anything that is causing me to believe those costs are going to go down in the coming years. As we think about additional revenue, those are some points to consider, for the board to consider, on how we generate revenue to pay the county's foster care bills.”

Commissioner Terry Britton said the failure of the levy again was “unfortunate,” as all three commissioners had endorsed the levy and advocated for its passage.

“The citizens of Highland County really missed an opportunity to help with the Children Services, and at a lower rate,” Britton said. “Now it's going to change, and like Jeremy said, this is not getting any cheaper.

“We're going to have to divert some of our money out of the other services to take care of this. It’s unfortunate, but it's just the way it is, so we'll have to work it out.”

Commissioner David Daniels said the levy’s “funding is still necessary” and said the county is “wanting to reconsider a levy at some point in the future.

“Part of this has got to do with our ability to pay, and also, the fact, the idea, of whether or not we need to place a child should not come down to dollars and cents,” Daniels said. “If it is necessary to get a child out of a situation that they're in, I don't think that we can make that a monetary decision.

“We're going to have to do everything we can to find available funding, and I think that that puts a lot of work on your [Ratcliff’s] agency as well to make sure that we're being as efficient in finding every savings that we can to allow those placements to occur.”

Commissioners said that they expect to pass the 2025 budget Dec. 18, when Butler will be “closing the books.”

In other discussion:

• Following discussion with county ARPA funding coordinator Nicole Oberrecht, commissioners voted 3-0 to maintain the current sewer rates for all three systems — Lakeside, Rocky Fork Lake and Rolling Acres — in 2025, with an intent to raise rates for Rocky Fork Lake customers entering 2026.

Daniels said there will be “a necessity to raise” those rates due to the second phase of wastewater treatment plant upgrades taking place in 2025. Commissioners voted in October to award the bid to Mechanical Construction Co., Inc., in the amount of $1,172,800.

“We need to start collecting in 2026 because the debt payment would be due in ’27, so getting a year's worth of collection in order to make that payment,” Oberrecht said.

Daniels said no decisions have been made yet “as to what that increase might look like in 2026.

“I think there's some contingencies built in that, if not used, could lower the cost of whatever kind of increase we might need,” he said. “We’re kind of waiting to see what that looks like.”

• Commissioners opened the lone bid submitted for snow removal/ice melt on county property this winter and agreed to award the project to Lawton Parry.

• Daniels asked to “hold off one more week” before taking action on a request from Highland County Treasurer Vickie Warnock for a new badge scanner for her office from Greystone Systems. Warnock told commissioners Nov. 20 that she wanted this system to be able to keep her interior office doors locked, with the badge system allowing her staff to move in and out easily.

“We’ve talked about whether or not other offices that were so equipped might want to take advantage of something like this, and what does the cost of that look like?” Daniels told Warnock. “I don't think we've gotten that back yet, so if you don't mind, we'll just kind of hang on to that for a second.”

• After their regular meeting, commissioners held an executive session to discuss employee compensation.

Commissioners also approved the following resolutions, each by a 3-0 vote:

• A request from the Court of Appeals for a budget modification within the 1000 County General Fund in the
amount of $500.

• A request from the Auditor for a budget modification within the 1000 County General Fund in the amount of $11,000.

• An additional appropriation from unappropriated funds within the 1000 County General Fund in the amount of $17,880.

• A resolution to create a new line item within the 2070 Soil and Water fund – Health Insurance.

• A resolution to create a new line item within the 2065 Repair - MVL fund – Health Insurance.

• An additional appropriation from unappropriated funds within the 5000 Rolling Acres Fund in the amount of $1,000.

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