County employees get raises in 2013

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

Van Wert County employees will be getting raises for the first time in several years as part of the recent budget appropriations approved by the county commissioners.

Commission President Thad Lichtensteiger said county employees would be getting 2-percent raises this year, with the exception of engineering department employees, who are not part of the General Fund and will receive a 3-percent salary increase.

The raises were part of appropriations for the current fiscal year. The county saw a carryover of $632,854 from last year and, coupled with total estimated revenues of $7,763,485 brings the total amount available for appropriations to $8,396,339.

Appropriations for the year total $8,320,485, leaving an ending estimated balance of $16,015, according to Board of Commissioners Chairman Thad Lichtensteiger.

“We’re really tight to the bone right now,” Lichtensteiger said of the budget figures, noting that the county did receive another $16,000 last week from the sale of county-owned property at 719 E. Crawford St., next to the former Council on Aging building. Tyler Holdgreve, owner of A&A Mechanical, who also purchased the Council on Aging building at 717 E. Crawford, purchased the land next to it as well.

In addition to employee raises, the commissioners also increased funding allotments for some local agencies and organizations. Funding increases included $5,000 to Main Street Van Wert and the Van Wert Area Convention & Visitors Bureau; $10,000 to the Van Wert County Agricultural Society (Fair Board) – which has to be used to pay down debt – and an extra $10,000 to the Van Wert Count Regional Airport.

The commissioners also dealt with a number of other issues last week. One perennially thorny problem is how to fund operation of the Van Wert Family and Children First program. The commissioners learned Thursday that Van Wert City Schools, which has funded and operated the program for the past several years, no longer has the funds to do so.

Lichtensteiger said the commissioners have talked to Thomas Edison Center Superintendent Jim Stripe about the possibility that the Van Wert Count Board of Developmental Disabilities could have funds to operate the program.

If not, the commissioners would have to either find other funds or come up with the money themselves to operate the program.

“We’re going to have to find out how to run it, and find out how to fund it,” Lichtensteiger said, adding that the program is mandated by the Ohio Revised Code, so funding will have to be found somewhere for what he called another “unfunded mandate”.