By CARL E. FEATHER - Staff Writer - cfeather@starbeacon.com
JEFFERSON — The Ashtabula County Board of Commissioners is discussing ways to address a growing threat to its budget: aging county-owned buildings badly in need of repairs.
Smolen Engineering has been hired to survey all of the county’s buildings, which range from those on the Courthouse campus to the Ashtabula Nursing Home, and come up with a list of repairs needed. Commissioner Daniel Claypool said preliminary numbers show that roofs on these buildings are already an issue to the tune of $600,000 or more, and the engineering firm still is looking at structures.
County Administrator Janet Discher said any work being performed to county buildings has been of the “patchwork” or emergency variety, not planned improvements. She said the county spends an average of $50,000 to $100,000 annually on these emergency repairs.
Claypool said the board needs to consider setting aside a portion of its inside-millage revenue, projected at about $4.5 million next year, to address the capital improvement needs. Inside millage on real estate is that which is not voted upon by voters.
“We’re at a point where there is no choice. We must do this,” Claypool told the board during a work session with the county auditor and county treasurer on Tuesday.
Auditor Roger Corlett said the commissioners’ current allocations of inside millage would provide $3.511 million to the 2010 general fund, $17,851 for capital improvements and $969,303 for debt retirement.
It is the latter category that Claypool is suggesting the board tap for the massive capital improvements the county buildings will need. A 20-year bond debt paid from the fund will be retired this year, freeing up about $700,000 annually. Claypool wants to see at least a portion of that money set aside for capital improvements. Commissioners, by resolution, direct the auditor how to allocate the money.
Claypool pointed out that the county’s newest building, the jail, is 30 years old and has issues with the mortar. The roof on the new courthouse leaks to the point that it is a health and safety issue for some employees, said Board President Peggy Carlo. Throughout the properties, cosmetic updating is needed.
Claypool acknowledged that the county’s first obligation is to pay off its debts, and in another work session Tuesday, commissioners looked at the county’s total debt picture. The burden includes enterprise activities, like the Ashtabula County Nursing and Rehabilitation Center and the Lodge and Conference Center at Geneva-on-the-Lake. The lodge places a debt burden of about $21 million on the county. About $7 million of that debt will need to be refinanced in 2010; the county, thus far, has paid only interest on the lodge debt. Corlett said the county could finance the $7 million debt with bonds once bond-market conditions become more favorable.
He also suggested the county look at financing needed capital improvements while interest rates are low. That approach would have the least amount of impact on cash flow but would increase the debt load.
However, Commissioner Joseph Moroski said the county already is struggling to service the debt it has.
“I don’t want to designate enough money for debt and find out we don’t have enough (money) to operate the county,” he said.
Commissioners set a deadline of Nov. 10 to decide how they will proceed with allocating the inside millage.
