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Michael D. Pitman reports about Butler County, Ohio, politics, county government, countywide issues and Butler County people just like you for Cox Ohio Publishing (including the Hamilton JournalNews, Middletown Journal and several weekly papers in Butler County). He wants your suggestions and questions for more news stories. Leave a comment for him here or e-mail Michael at Home > Blogs > Butler County News and Issues > Archives > 2010 > May > 21
Friday, May 21, 2010
Sheriff Tweeting on Mexico president’s visit
A couple of Tweets from Sheriff Richard K. Jones today:
It’s disgusts me that the Mex Prez comes to USA and lectures 2 our people while our border is overrun with drugs, murderers, and kidnappings
and
mexico president should apologize at once.
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TweetArkansas shooting may have ties to Middletown, white-supremacy
Fox 19 is reporting a shooting in Arkansas may have ties to a church in Middletown.
A public records investigation by the station found that a shooting in Arkansas could be linked to a White supremacist group here in Ohio, the station is reporting.
The records link the van used in the shooting to the House of God’s Prayer, which has an address in New Vienna, Ohio. Clinton County records show that property is owned by the Universal Life of the Good Shepherd Church, which has an address in Middletown, the station is reporting.
The station says New Vienna was the home of the Jesus Christ Christian Church led by a self proclaimed white supremacist.
Butler County records show the Middletown property owned by Hoge and Mary Tabor, the station reports. Tabor told Fox 19 reporters that he owns the New Vienna property, but then hung up the phone.
Here is a story about the shooting from the Associated Press:
WEST MEMPHIS, Ark. — Two West Memphis police officers were shot and killed Thursday during a traffic stop along a busy cross-country interstate highway. The local sheriff and his chief deputy were wounded in a later shootout that left a pair of suspects dead.
The officers killed were Brandon Paudert and Bill Evans. Paudert is the son of West Memphis police chief Bob Paudert. The younger Paudert was assigned to the police department’s drug unit but it wasn’t immediately known why the officers pulled over a white van with Ohio plates.
At a news conference outside a Memphis, Tenn., hospital, Memphis Safety Director Larry Godwin said Crittenden County Sheriff Richard Busby and his chief deputy were wounded during a shootout with the suspects. A spokesman at the Regional Medical Center said Busby’s condition was undetermined while Deputy W.A. Wren was in critical condition.
Busby and Wren shot at the suspects in a Wal-Mart parking lot near the intersection of Interstates 40 and 55 in West Memphis. Both highways are major cross-country interstates.
Here is a video report from the AP:
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TweetCounty facing another $4 million shortfall
The optimism didn’t pan out. And now Butler County commissioners have to sharpen up their budget axes yet again.
The county is facing a roughly $4 million budget deficit this year, according to county Management and Budget Director Pete Landrum. Commissioners are meeting Monday, May 24, to discuss cuts.
The shortfalls include a $2 million shortfall in paid prisoners at the county jail, and a $377,409 drop in property tax revenues because of declining property values amid recession.
Plus the county is facing roughly $700,000 in unbudgeted expenditures, including payments to the Miami Conservancy District that had to come out of the county’s general fund after county officials determined they were improperly collecting the money from homeowners.
Here is an overview of the budget deficit:
Analysis:
Landrum said the county needs a new budget in place quickly. “A delay in action will result in lower fund levels, which then would maybe cause an even deeper cut,” he said.
He added that county officials will go to Chicago in mid-July to have their bond rating adjusted.
“If nothing is in place by that time, I would say there would be a good probability of a reduction in our bond rating,” he said.
It would be difficult to make cuts without cutting personnel. Only $46.2 million of the county’s budget can be cut while providing state-mandated services and keeping the buildings standing, Lanrum said. “We’re at the rock bottom of those types of things,” he said.
Of the money they can cut, 93.3 percent is employee salaries and benefits.
And if the county dips into its $9.7 million cash reserves to make up the difference, as it has in previous budget shortfalls, it could deplete that fund to “critical” levels, Landrum said.
The $85.3 million 2010 budget commissioners adopted last year — after dozens of layoffs and millions of dollars in cuts — was the “most optimistic” of budget scenarios before them.
In order to make it balance, they pulled $900,000 from the county’s cash reserves and banked on increased prisoner boarding revenues promised by Sheriff Richard K. Jones. Instead, the sheriff has had to lay off deputies and corrections officers.
The average of 400 prisoners the sheriff hoped to have at the county jail, paid for by other jurisdictions, is averaging only 230 — many local, meaning the county makes no money from them. This is because other counties and agencies are also cutting back, Jones has said.
Landrum said when the optimistic option was proposed, “That was stated loud and clear that if things didn’t come to pass, there was going to be further action taken.”
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