{"id":36535,"date":"2013-03-26T07:05:57","date_gmt":"2013-03-26T12:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/?p=36535"},"modified":"2013-03-27T06:08:58","modified_gmt":"2013-03-27T11:08:58","slug":"council-oks-budget-hears-performance-audit-info","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2013\/03\/26\/council-oks-budget-hears-performance-audit-info\/","title":{"rendered":"City Council OKs budget; hears audit info"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Donovan O'Neil (standing), Northwest Ohio regional liaison for Auditor of State Dave Yost's office, distributes information on performance audits to City Council members during Monday's Finance Committee meeting. (Dave Mosier\/Van Wert independent)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Van Wert City Council approved permanent appropriations for 2013, with some needed amendments, and also discussed the merits of having the Ohio Auditor of State\u2019s Office conduct a performance audit of the city.<\/p>\n

Council unanimously approved a permanent appropriations ordinance for the year, replacing a temporary budget ordinance already in place. City Auditor Martha Balyeat had the usual list of last-minute amendments to the legislation, including a $10,000 appropriation for the Van Wert County Regional Airport Authority; approximately $60,000 to the Van Wert Police Department to pay for salary and benefit expenses for an additional officer, who will be hired sometime in mid-year and will bring the department up to required minimum staffing; approximately $47,000 for the Fire Department; and funding for an additional full-time employee in the Parks Department. Money received from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for expenses incurred in last year\u2019s derecho windstorm will be used for tree-trimming costs this year, Safety-Service Director Jay Fleming noted.<\/p>\n

The budget includes a projected carryover of $307,000, which is in addition to the reserve fund of 10 percent of overall appropriations and an estimated $150,000 to be received this year from the final year of estate tax receipts.<\/p>\n

Also on Monday, Donovan O\u2019Neil, Northwest Ohio regional liaison for Auditor of State Dave Yost, made a presentation on performance audits that are being conducted by a division of the state auditor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neil said the performance audits are a \u201cvalue added\u201d service being provided by state auditors, noting that more and more communities and agencies are seeking the audits to improve services and processes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really taken off the last year or two,\u201d he noted of the service first begun under former state auditor Jim Petro.<\/p>\n

Unlike private business, which aims to provide a high-quality service or product in order to make a profit, O\u2019Neil explained that government\u2019s goal is provide the highest quality of services possible for the least amount of taxpayer dollars.<\/p>\n

To do that, government entities need to look at \u201cbest practices\u201d: improving processes to maximize efficiency and minimize waste.<\/p>\n

While performance audits, which take between six and nine months to complete, are not cheap, costing upwards of $75,000 for one that looks at all of a city\u2019s operations, the savings can also be substantial. O\u2019Neil said average savings are $24 for every $1 in audit costs in the first year only, although he stressed those savings are not guaranteed.<\/p>\n

Balyeat has been a proponent of performance audits, as has Finance Committee Chair Joi Mergy.<\/p>\n

\u201cSavings over the years would add up and be worth the investment,\u201d Balyeat said of the audits. \u201cI think it would pay for itself in time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The auditor said she thought it would be a good idea to set up a meeting with the city\u2019s department heads to allow them to suggest areas they would like to see included in a performance audit. First Ward Councilman John Marshall liked that idea. \u201cThose are the guys out in the foxholes fighting the wars,\u201d he said, adding that department heads would likely have a better idea of what areas and city processes could be improved.<\/p>\n

Councilman At-Large Jeff Agler wasn\u2019t so sure, noting his feeling that the $75,000 audit cost wouldn\u2019t likely result in all that many savings. \u201cYou\u2019re not going to save a million dollars,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Council candidate Jerry Mazur noted, though, that even if an audit resulted in an annual savings of $30,000 and cost $75,000, those savings would pay for the cost of the audit in just 2\u00bd years.<\/p>\n

Council President Gary Corcoran said he would like to see a performance audit that could give city officials information on whether its current economic development strategies are working. \u201cJob creation and income growth are critical to us,\u201d Corcoran told O\u2019Neil, who said he wasn\u2019t sure a performance audit could provide economic development information.<\/p>\n

More discussion is planned, with a conference call proposed with a supervisor of the Auditor of State division that handles performance audits.<\/p>\n

Mayor Don Farmer talked about a recent family trip to the southwest Indiana area that allowed him to see what was taking place in a couple of Indiana communities that were awarded economic development projects Van Wert was also in the running for. The mayor said he felt that Van Wert was \u201cfar ahead\u201d of either community in its downtown revitalization and code enforcement activities. \u201cSometimes it is good to get away from our community and get back to it to see what we really have,\u201d Mayor Farmer told Council members.<\/p>\n

The mayor also reported that the city\u2019s newly redesigned website has had approximately 12,000 hits in the past three weeks, and also brought up the possibility of selling advertising on the site to generate additional city income.<\/p>\n

While Law Director John Hatcher said he has seen nothing in the Ohio Revised Code that would prohibit online advertising on the city website, he did caution that Council and city officials should be aware of potential conflicts of interest and other ethical problems that could arise.<\/p>\n

Also during Monday\u2019s Council meeting, Fleming noted that the delayed bid opening for the West Main Street reconstruction project is now scheduled for this Thursday.<\/p>\n

Streets and Alleys Committee Chair Pete Weir said that he has heard a number of compliments from local business owners on how quickly snow was removed from downtown alleys and city streets after the snowstorm.<\/p>\n

The next regularly scheduled City Council meeting will be held at 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 8, in Council Chambers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/independent editor Van Wert City Council approved permanent appropriations for 2013, with some needed amendments, and also discussed the merits of having the Ohio Auditor of State\u2019s Office conduct a performance audit of the city. Council unanimously approved a permanent appropriations ordinance for the year, replacing a temporary budget ordinance already in place. City […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-30 22:48:31","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36535\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}