Photo by Gage Vota. Belmont County Commissioner JP Dutton reads HE Neumann Company’s bid of $32,118 for all labor and materials required to install a heating, air conditioning, and ventilation unit for the evidence room at the Belmont County Jail.
ST. CLAIRSVILLE – The Belmont County Board of Commissioners took a closer look at the county’s 2024 budget Wednesday morning as Belmont County Auditor Cindi Henry went over the numbers with commissioners.
“We’re starting the cash transfer from 2023 to 2024, we had a surplus of about half a million,” Henry said.
She added that the county is on track to certify the same total as last year – $36,484,370 – unless there is a major influx by year’s end.
“Our local government is down about $100,000 in revenue right now,” Henry said. “Rental revenue is down about $20,000, but that’s the half-year mark, so we have the rest of the year to catch up. And sales tax is down about $500,000 right now.”
“When you say sales tax went down by $500,000, does that apply from January 1 to today?” asked Commissioner Jerry Echemann.
“Yes,” Henry replied. “I did the calculations on a full year basis, not a reporting year basis. I think that’s more accurate because that report is about two months behind. But other than that, I think we’re doing pretty well.”
Commissioner JP Dutton confirmed to Henry that once commissioners begin working on the 2025 budget, they can use this year’s budget as a guide of sorts. Dutton then said that when looking at sales tax reports, the county only saw a one-month decrease from the 2023 reports.
“If you look at the overall results from three years ago, we’re still up, but still down from last year,” Henry said. “We’re probably back to where we were three years ago, but we still have to make up the half-year.”
She then asked commissioners for clarification on whether Governor Mike DeWine had extended the tax-free period to a full month, to which Dutton replied that it had been extended this year, but by 10 days.
“I was going to say it’s been extended, so that could definitely impact us as well, and I didn’t realize that at all until last week,” Henry said.
Dutton said the tax-free holiday was an important shopping period for residents, but that to his knowledge there was no government mechanism to refund taxes to counties during the tax-free holiday.
Commissioners also passed the resolution authorizing Belmont County Job and Family Services Director Jeff Felton to transfer $283,514 from the Public Assistance Fund to the Child Support Enforcement Agency Fund for state fiscal year 2024.
The Commissioners then voted to accept the tender of the HE Neumann Company for $32,118 for all labor and materials required to install a heating, air conditioning, and ventilation unit in the evidence room of the Belmont County Jail.
“It’s a pretty interesting situation that we’re going to fix,” Echemann said. “The ventilation in the evidence room wasn’t what it should be, and there’s all sorts of stuff in there that you would expect from crimes committed many years ago.”
He added that once the project is completed, the evidence room will have its own system to address the problem of the unpleasant smell that occurs when evidence is left in the room for years.
