Dixon cries foul over softball payments

By Josh Sweigart | Friday, July 3, 2009, 10:52 AM

It appears that not even the great American pastime is safe as Butler County leaders leave no rock unturned in trying to fill a $6 million budget hole.

Commission President Donald Dixon took issue Thursday evening, July 2, with a request that county employees be reimbursed for umpire fees and registration for the county’s recreational softball team. Price tag: $229.

“We’re taking money out of the general fund? We’re laying people off, we’re freezing salaries, and we’re joining a softball league?” an incredulous Dixon asked.

The reimbursement was for a game scheduled for Thursday night. “Tell them before they play because they might not want to go,” he said. “I just don’t think it’s appropriate.”

Commissoiner Gregory Jolivette said he was inclined to agree with Dixon’s foul call, but wanted more information about the reimbursement before voting the team out.

Without a second to Dixon’s request to deny the payment, the issue took a rain check until another meeting.

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County commissioners to meet in New Miami

By Josh Sweigart | Tuesday, June 30, 2009, 09:36 AM

Press release from Butler County:

The Butler County Board of Commissioners will hold a commission meeting at the New Miami Village Hall on July 2 at 7:00 P.M.

To encourage citizen participation, the Board of Commissioners will hold one nightly meeting each month in a different city, village or township located in the county. The Board will announce future meeting dates and locations prior to each meeting.

Meeting agendas are available on the web at www.butlercountyohio.org/commissioner under “commission meetings.” The agenda will be available by July 1.

The New Miami Village Hall is located at 268 Whitaker Avenue, Hamilton, Ohio 45011.

Directions to Village Hall:

• From 75 S or N
• Merge onto OH-129 toward Hamilton
• Turn RIGHT onto S. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd./US-127
• Turn LEFT onto Whitaker Avenue

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Becker bumped from EMA list

By Josh Sweigart | Monday, June 29, 2009, 05:59 PM

The Butler County Emergency Management Agency has narrowed down the list of applicants for agency director to two — both from outside Ohio.

The finalists are Jeff Galloway, emergency management director in Fentress County, Tennessee; and Joey Henderson, emergency management specialist for the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the Washington D.C. region.

“We’re looking for someone who has the experience, someone who has an impeccable record, impeccable background, someone who showed leadership skills and experience writing grants,” said Ronald D’Epifanio, Fairfield mayor and member of the EMA governing board.

EMA Interim Director Sue Isaacs said the board hopes to have a final pick within a couple weeks.

The job comes with a salary of at least $60,000 per year. It has been vacant since former EMA Director William Turner resigned amid pressure in March after criticism of his handling of windstorms in September.

One suspected favorite for the job was Bill Becker, Middletown city councilman and former police chief and city manager.

D’Epifanio said Becker was a “fine, fine man,” but that “there were just other people who had more qualifications.”

Prior to heading emergency management in Fentress County, Galloway’s resume says he was a lieutenant in the Palm Beach County fire department in Florida, where he worked since 1984. He has extensive training in firefighting and emergency response.

Henderson’s resume says he was responsible for two training exercises before Pres. Barack Obama’s inauguration. Before that, he was also training and exercise administrator for the Maryland Emergency Management Agency.

Henderson’s resume says he is an Ohio native. The former Baltimore firefighter holds a master’s degree in management from Johns Hopkins University and a bachelor’s degree in fire science from University of Maryland.

Continue reading "Becker bumped from EMA list"...

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Resolutions part 12 - County auditor responds

By Josh Sweigart | Friday, June 26, 2009, 12:00 PM

Butler County Auditor Roger Reynolds has some major concerns with the amount of work done without a contract, and architectural work that apparently was finished months before it was bid out.

This was all uncovered in an ongoing investigation of the county’s relationship with Resolutions, Community Solutions and the renovation of the Court Street jail.

“It’s loose, it’s sloppy, it goes against the Ohio Revised Code,” Reynolds said.

“Butler County can’t just come to you and say I’d like you to be the go between and I’d like you to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in rehabilitating this facility,” Reynolds said. “What I’m going to continue to look into is why isn’t there a contract between Resolutions and the county to perform the rehabilitation work.”

It’s unclear why Resolutions did the work. None of the invoices passed along to the county bills for profit or administrative fees.

Resolutions stood to gain if the county took in more prisoners. But that was the case regardless of who actually renovated the jail. It’s unclear whether the agency kept the tools that it bought and billed the county for.

“Those are items that are defined in a contract. That’s why you have a contract. You define the terms of the construction ahead of time,” Reynolds said.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that if Resolutions was doing the oversight on the jail, somewhere they were being compensated for it.”

Reynolds said he is compiling records to send to the county prosecutor’s office to determine if any laws were broken. County Administrator Tim Williams said the same. Roger Gates, assistant county prosecutor, wouldn’t comment on the issue, citing closed door negotiations with Resolutions.

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Children services names new director, possibly new program

By Josh Sweigart | Thursday, June 25, 2009, 03:30 PM

Several developments today from Butler County commissioners regarding Butler County Children Services.

First, they picked a new director (read the full story here):

Butler County commissioners named Jeff Centers as director of Children Services today, June 25.

Centers has served as interim director since former director Michael Fox retired in March. Before that, Centers was agency finance director since 2006.

He also is the former executive director of the Warren County Children Services board, where he worked since 1987.

Centers was selected from a pool of 57 applicants for the job of steering the agency, which has 176 employees, a roughly $29 million budget and has been under the microscope since the death of Marcus Fiesel in foster care three years ago.

Centers said he is going to look at the agency’s organizational structure and programs to “review what we’ve got and make sure we’re headed down the right path with it.”

He plans on keeping some of the former director’s policies in place, such as a criminal background unit to screen foster placements and an expansion of the family preservation program, which provides funds and services to keep at-risk families intact.

Other more controversial policies are suspended indefinitely, he said. This includes a “common sense policy” allowing employees to violate agency rules if they deem it in the best interest of a child, and a policy giving preference in adoption placement to traditional married families over single people or same-sex couples.

And they’re considering a new program for at-risk families (Read the full story here):

A local non-profit says it can keep families together and save Butler County money by offering a residential treatment center for families at risk of losing their children to foster care.

The Talbert House made its presentation this morning, June 25, asking county commissioners to spend roughly $700,000 a year to run the facility.

It will provide a home for roughly six families at a time for three months at a stint, giving them wraparound services and training as a last ditch effort to keep them together.

“We want to be on site…24-7 with the families and see what’s going on and intervene when it’s needed,” said Talbert House President Neil Tilow. “We want to be there when the real problems are emerging.”

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Resolutions part 11 - The sheriff’s office responds

By Josh Sweigart | Thursday, June 25, 2009, 12:00 PM

As I said in yesterday’s post, Butler County Sheriff Richard K. Jones was unavailable for in-depth questions about the county’s relationship with Resolutions, Community Solutions.

But here is a synopsis of what his second in command said:

It’s misleading to refer to Resolutions as a drug and alcohol treatment agency, because their responsibilities include food service, laundry and maintenance at all county jails, according to Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Anthony Dwyer.

And this is why it made sense for the agency to oversee the renovation, he said.

“The fact that they assisted down at the Court Street facility was not completely out of character for what they do on a day to day basis here,” he said. “It would make sense that the people that are already providing a maintenance service for you be involved in renovating a building that you own.”

Dwyer said sheriff’s deputies were on hand to oversee the inmates, which were put to work on manual labor such as removing bars from cells to create an open bay layout, and grinding off paint, under the watch of Resolutions.

“I think what was being expended was proper, from what I’ve seen,” he said. “Everything that I saw that was occurring during the operating phases was appropriate.”

Dwyer said he wasn’t aware of the specific agreements between Resolutions and the county and doesn’t know why there was no contract.

“I think the decision was appropriate, but how it gets done and making sure you have the checks and balances is the question,” he said.

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IRS calls tax rules ‘obsolete,’ still charging county $400,000

By Josh Sweigart | Wednesday, June 24, 2009, 01:26 PM

Despite calling the rule “burdensome” and “obsolete,” Internal Revenue Service officials don’t appear to be letting Butler County officials off the hook for employee back-taxes for personal use of county equipment.

The county has set aside $400,000 to pay this bill. This is roughly $100,000 less than the IRS initially requested after an audit found the county spent about $1.5 million in fringe benefits over three years that should have been reported on employee taxes.

Commissioners called the finding “crazy”, because in part it taxes employees for personal use of cell phones, uniforms and cars that aren’t allowed under county policy.

And IRS officials agree. In a statement earlier this month, IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said he’s asking Congress to make clear there will be no tax consequences for personal use of work-related devices such as cell phones.

Shulman’s comments:

“This month, the Internal Revenue Service asked for comments on ways to simplify compliance with rules related to employer-provided cellular telephones. The current law, which has been on the books for many years, is burdensome, poorly understood by taxpayers, and difficult for the IRS to administer consistently. Some have incorrectly implied that the IRS is ‘cracking down’ on employee use of employer-provided cell phones. To the contrary, the IRS is attempting to simplify the rules and eliminate uncertainty for businesses and individuals. Although some of the proposed changes would add clarity, the current law will inevitably leave widespread confusion among employees and businesses. Therefore, Secretary Geithner and I ask that Congress act to make clear that there will be no tax consequence to employers or employees for personal use of work-related devices such as cell phones provided by employers. The passage of time, advances in technology, and the nature of communication in the modern workplace have rendered this law obsolete.”

What this means: little

Williams said Butler County’s back taxes are still being negotiated, and the penalties may be reduced further, but he is not optimistic that it will help the county’s cause. “Whenever a tax item is changed, they seldom go retroactively back into the past in order to adjust it.”

“If this law change would have happened 12 months earlier, perhaps it would be a completely different story,” he said.

With the county’s general fund running roughly $6 million in the red, Williams said the county will have to rely on its dwindling reserves to pay off the taxes. The costs will be spread around the funds and departments that accrued them, not just the general fund, he said.

“We’re not asking for funds to cut in order to pay the IRS,” he said.

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