He received verbal support from his fellow commissioners recently to hold the line on any new hires outside already approved staffing levels for this year and 2026. The approved budget for this year includes 1,784 full-time equivalent positions, excluding elected officials and board members.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty out there right now. (We’re) not sure where it’s all going to end up; nobody really knows,” Dixon told the Journal-News. “We have increased our expenditures for our employees significantly. In ‘23 payroll was $74 million, in ‘24 it went to $78 million and then this year it’s around $84 million. Those numbers are not sustainable. They’re just not; we have to live within our means.”
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
He said officials can fill vacancies when people leave and fill positions they haven’t yet hired for, but otherwise there won’t be anymore hiring for the next 19 months. Commissioner Cindy Carpenter said there may be exceptions but they’ll deal with those as they arise.
“We can definitely hear their stories at the budget hearings in case there’s anything unexpected that’s come up or something that was missed in review,” she said. “But I think it’s a great idea.”
Commissioner T.C. Rogers said there could be a slight deviation from the new rule, because some offices have had the practice of allowing retiring employees to stay on for a period of time to help transition new hires.
He told the Journal-News the budget hearings in the fall might not be as pleasant as they have been previously.
“We’re in great shape but I don’t want everybody making comments that we can do anything,” he said. “We’re still going to be prudent and not waste any money. Now the word waste is subjective to some but you still have to run your operation like it’s not going to come in forever.”
According to the commissioners’ monthly financial dashboard, personnel expenses have increased 23.6% since 2019. They amounted to $62.7 million in 2019. After the pandemic cuts, they dropped to $55.2 million, took a leap to $62.9 million in 2021; $70.6 million in 2022; $74 million in 2023; and $77.6 million last year. The commissioners budgeted $84.3 million this year and spent $21 million in the first quarter.
The commissioners passed a structurally balanced $126.3 million general fund budget this year which constitutes a 3.7% or $4.5 million increase over last year’s spending plan. They started the year with $149 million in the bank, expect to cull $133.2 million from various revenue sources for a total of nearly $282.2 million in available funds.
The general fund is the main operational fund, but there are a number of entities that rely on outside resources such as state and federal funding, service fees like water and sewer and independent tax levies. All funds combined, the total spending plan for next year amounts to $507.4 million, with revenues totaling $433 million.
Some departments and offices — mainly the courts — also have special projects revenue and sometimes officials move personnel off those revenue streams into the general fund.
For example, the Area Courts moved five positions this year from their special funds to the general fund to help pay for some improvements that were recommended in the Ohio Supreme Court Physical Security Assessment.
County Administrator Judi Boyko is still crafting the hiring freeze resolution but said she is including a section, based on direction from the board, that would preclude officials from moving salaries from special funds to the general fund. The commissioners said they could approve exceptions to the prohibition on a case-by-case basis.
Butler County Common Pleas Court Administrative Judge Dan Haughey — who served three terms as the Area III Court judge in West Chester — said there are legitimate reasons for moving salaries to the general fund.
“I don’t have any knowledge of the Common Pleas Court or the Area Courts doing anything, I don’t want to make it sound underhanded but of we’re going to hire you under the guise of utilizing special projects monies and then 90 days later or six months later we’re going to switch you to the general fund as an end around of what the commissioners have mandated,” he said. “I’m not aware of that either in my 12 years of Area Court time or now my time in Common Pleas, I’m not aware of things like that happening, I am aware of times where we would have somebody in the Area Courts that accomplished a particular task or job and when it was time to reevaluate what we needed them to do and that could necessitate some type of change in the funding source.”
The courts are unique in that if the judges believe they need to spend more money than the commissioners allow, they can force the issue by a court order. It hasn’t happened here, at least not as far as anyone can remember.
Haughey told the Journal-News he can’t ever recall a “contentious” budget hearing between the judges and commissioners. The Common Pleas Court has 81 authorized positions and he said “we are in very good shape” in terms of staffing so the hiring freeze won’t adversely impact their operation.
Sheriff Richard Jones — who has the largest staff by far with 404.8 authorized FTEs — said even with an influx of ICE detainees in the jail, “I support them 100%” on the hiring freeze.
“These are weird times, strange times, the market goes up, the market goes down,” Jones said. “The commissioners have been good stewards and they have no debt and I defer to their judgment. We’re all doing fine right now and I’m good with it.”
President Donald Trump’s reelection has prompted the volatile stock market — due to his tariffs and other new policies — and Jones’ reentry into the illegal immigrant deportation business.
Jones reopened his jail to house U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees on March 5 and there were 231 detainees in the jail on Monday afternoon, up from the 146 at the end of March.
The county’s chief financial officer, Auditor Nancy Nix, told the Journal-News she doesn’t “share the commissioners doomsday viewpoint on the American economy” but agrees with the freeze. Her staff quota is 27.
“I’m very excited about America’s future under President Trump. Of course there may be bumps along the way,” she said. “However, if the commissioners feel a hiring freeze is in order, they have my support. Smaller government is always desirable to me. We operate very lean in the auditors office anyway, and I don’t see that changing.”
Even before the hiring freeze cropped up Dixon was warning people extra raises are over. This year, based on the periodic wage survey of the market, the commissioners deviated from the traditional two-part merit pay plan, increasing the minimum pay ranges for all non-union employees and a 5% raise for those who are below the maximum for their pay range. The unions that renegotiated their deals this year also got the 5% boost.
Next year, the performance pay program will drop back to a possible 2% added to employees’ base pay and a similar stipend in lump sum, based on merit.
County Prosecutor Mike Gmoser, who will be allowed 67 staffers after the commissioners approve the freeze, said he knew the “belt tightening” was coming. He’s fine with it because the commissioners have put him in an enviable position statewide.
“The county commissioners in Butler County gave me the financial tools to hire good people,” Gmoser said. “I jokingly say I’m a thief, I’m a felon, I steal from other prosecutors, the best they have and not cheap stuff, the expensive stuff I steal.”
Dixon said he doesn’t have a crystal ball obviously but he knows his main responsibility.
“We get paid to anticipate what’s coming down the street in two, three, five, 10 years for our taxpayers,” he said. “We’ve always been ahead of the game and I don’t want to get behind the eight ball. It just makes a lot of sense, and hey, if it turns out better than it looks right now, good for our taxpayers.”
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