Budget Commission Approves $505,000 in Geauga Public Health Supplemental Appropriations as the First Step to Settle Some of the Outstanding Payments Due to Lake County Under the Cross Jurisdictional Agreement
Budget Commission Meeting – June 15, 2026
Meeting Details: The Geauga County Budget Commission met in Regular Session on Monday, June 15, 2026 at 10:00 am in the Auditor's Conference Room, 215 Main Street, Chardon, Ohio. The meeting was in person with a virtual attendance option via MS Teams. To attend Budget Commission meetings virtually via MS Teams, email an invitation request to Pam McMahan at PMcMahan@geauga.oh.gov.
Meeting Attendance: Treasurer Chris Hitchcock (arriving at 10:10 am), Prosecutor Jim Flaiz , and ADP (Automatic Data Processing) Chief Deputy Administrator Frank Antenucci (substituting for Auditor Chuck Walder).
Staff Attendance: Deputy Auditors Tina Kloski and Jennifer Hess and Auditor’s Office Chief Operations Officer Pam McMahan.
County Staff: Geauga Public Health Finance Director Katie Taylor (in person) and Geauga County Budget and Finance Manager Adrian Gorton (virtual).
Members of the Public: Court of Common Pleas Magistrate Randy Taylor, Geauga County Mental Health and Recovery Services Board Member Kathy Johnson, and this LWV Geauga Observer all attended virtually.
The meeting was called to order at 10:03 am.
Minutes: No Minutes were presented for approval. Budget Commission Minutes can be found here when posted.
Regular Business:
The following Revenue Certificate was approved:
Reviewer Note: An explanation of the different types of funds in revenue certifications can be found
here.
-
Newbury Township - Amendment #5. $1,802,028.60 in the general fund, $4,170,572.09 in special revenue funds, $364,145.93 in debt service funds, $1,008,279.78 in capital project funds, and $1,535.64 in special assessment funds for a total of $7,346,562.04.
Newbury Township’s amendment certified an increase in the general fund.
Other Business:
GPD’s board passed a resolution approving GPD’s permanent appropriations that morning (June 15, 2026), so therefore the Budget Commission had just received the resolution and supporting documentation. Observer Note: The text of the GPD resolution approving its permanent appropriations is reproduced below:
WHEREAS, the Geauga Park District Board of Commissioners approved the "final" appropriations for 2026 on December 15, 2025;
WHEREAS, on December 22, 2025 the final appropriations for 2026 were sent to the Geauga County Budget Commission labeled as the temporary appropriations for 2026, a copy of which is attached and noted as Attachment 1;
WHEREAS, it was the intent of the Geauga Park District Board of Commissioners, when it approved such final appropriations, to be the permanent appropriations for 2026; and
WHEREAS, the Geauga Park District Board of Commissioners desire to clarify that such final appropriations approved in December 2025 are the permanent appropriations for 2026 and that such permanent appropriations for 2026 in the amount of $11,009,540 match the temporary appropriations for 2026 submitted to the Geauga County Budget Commission.
NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, as follows:
SECTION 1. That the Geauga Park District Board of Commissioners adopted and approved the permanent appropriations for 2026 on December 15, 2025 and that such permanent appropriations for 2026 match the temporary appropriations for 2026 submitted to the Geauga County Budget Commission in December 2025, as provided in Attachment 1.
SECTION 2. That the Director of Finance is hereby directed to send this Resolution with Attachment 1 and his Attestation to the Geauga County Budget Commission, (a copy of which is attached and noted as Attachment 2), attesting that the Geauga County Park District Board of Commissioners adopted and approved the permanent appropriations for 2026 on December 15, 2025 as submitted to the Geauga County Budget Commission in December 2025 and that such permanent appropriations for 2026 match the temporary appropriations for 2026 submitted previously to the Geauga County Budget Commission in December 2025.
SECTION 3. It is hereby found and determined that all formal actions on the Board concerning and relating to the passage of its Resolution were adopted in an open meeting of the Board, and that all deliberations of the Board and any of its committees on or after December 2, 1975, that resulted in formal actions, were in meetings open to the public in compliance with all legal requirements, including Section 121.22 of the Ohio Revised Code.
SECTION 4. This Resolution shall take effect immediately upon its passage.
It was noted that the GPD Director of Finance certified that the permanent appropriations match the temporary appropriations. Mr. Antenucci said that he would like time to review the submitted items and wished that a GPD representative was present to provide some explanation. Mr. Flaiz also wanted more time to review the submission in order to check if the permanent appropriations match what was approved by the Budget Commission at GPD’s Budget Hearing. He stated, “what they're admitting here is that they really didn't have any appropriations, January 1st until June 15th.” Mr. Antenucci responded: “They did, but they called it the wrong thing, and then went back and said ‘this is what we meant to say.’” It was noted that GPD had also submitted an Amendment for Budget Commission consideration, but it was determined that permanence needs to be established before the Amendment can be considered. The Budget Commission voted to table GPD’s permanent appropriations as well as its submitted Amendment #2 in order to allow time for review.
The following GPH supplemental appropriations were considered by the Budget Commission:
-
Fund 6002 (General Fund): $116,562.15 for Contract Services in order to appropriate funds to pay CJA (cross jurisdictional agreement) invoices
-
Fund 6004 (Trailer Park): $4,000.00 for Contract Services in order to appropriate funds to pay CJA invoices
-
Fund 6005 (Food Service): $300,000 for Contract Services in order to appropriate funds to pay CJA invoices
-
Fund 6011 (Private Water Systems): $30,000 for Contract Services in order to appropriate funds to pay CJA invoices
-
Fund 6018 (Swimming Pool): $5,000.00 for Contract Services in order to appropriate funds to pay CJA invoices
-
Fund 6021 (Public Health Infrastructure): $240,000.00 for Contract Services in order to appropriate funds to pay CJA invoices
-
Fund 6023 (Sewage Treatment System): $180,000 for Contract Services in order to appropriate funds to pay CJA invoices
-
Fund 6037 (For Sale of Property): $94,258.57 in order to appropriate funds to pay CJA invoices broken down as follows: $18,258.57 for Contract Services and $76,000.00 for “Other”
-
Fund 6042 (Population Health): $20,000.00 for Contract Services in order to appropriate funds to pay CJA invoices
-
Fund 6043 (Operations & Maintenance): $237,512.51 for Contract Services in order to appropriate funds to pay CJA invoices
Mr. Hitchcock noted that the Budget Commission had asked GPH for a breakdown of its anticipated appropriations at the June 1 Budget Commission meeting and asked for an update on that. Ms. Taylor responded that they had met with their legal counsel and came up with “a plan to get this cleaned up before the end of the year.” She said that the first step of that plan involved a Special Meeting of the GPH Board where they approved the supplemental appropriations that are now being considered by the Budget Commission. She indicated that “there's going to be approximately 17 then and nows that are going to be coming once these supplementals go through to be able to pay about half of what we owe (to Lake County),” and she said that this would amount to a total of about $505,000 in outstanding invoice payments to Lake County. Mr. Hitchcock observed that, “this is at least a start.”
Mr. Flaiz expressed the opinion that “for the other half (of what is owed to Lake), the only path I can see would be, Lake County is going to have to file in our Common Pleas Court here a lawsuit against Geauga County Health District, and I'll represent Geauga County. Lake County’ll have, hopefully, their prosecutor will do it, you know, so there's no cost on either side, and then we'll have to reach like a lawsuit settlement where it authorizes payment of these bills, because the money wasn't appropriated. I mean, I don't know any other way around it.” He said he thought it would be “an amicable situation” and stressed that, “I just don't know a way of correcting this accounting mess outside of the court order.” Ms. Taylor said that they didn’t discuss this with their counsel Bryan Kostura. Mr. Flaiz said Mr. Kostura could consult on this, but “he can't represent you guys without court order.”
Mr. Antenucci asked what Lake County has to say about the situation. Ms. Taylor said Lake was waiting to see how Geauga was going to handle this.
Mr. Hitchcock noted that Ms. Taylor said that GPH had about $800,000 in outstanding invoices to Lake County at its Budget Hearing two weeks prior. Ms. Taylor said that number did not include some lab costs, so the actual total amount owed was about $979,000. She estimated the remaining amount owed (after the $505,000 is paid) at about $473,000 and said it could not be paid using then and nows out of GPH’s special program funds because “there’s no ‘then’ appropriations to cover that.” She did note that “there were ‘then’ appropriations in the general fund,” so that could be a solution. Ms. Taylor noted that GPH had previously done fund balance adjustments, wherein “the general fund paid for those costs up front, and we did a fund balance adjustment from those special program funds back to the general, so that those funds did actually, you know, come from the correct accounts.” Observer Note: See the December 1, 2025 Budget Commission Observer Report for more information. Mr. Antenucci advised GPH “... to see if there's a legal path forward then on accessing that general fund money.”
The Budget Commissioners then voted unanimously to approve the supplemental appropriations listed above.
A $50,000 appropriation within GPH’s general fund from Salaries to Contract Services in order to reallocate funds for CJA invoices was approved by the Budget Commission. Ms. Taylor stated that the general fund line item for salaries was overappropriated, so this action corrects that by moving $50,000 to the general fund contract services line item.
Mr. Antenucci advised Ms. Taylor that GPH should do its own review of its budget process, but
he shared what the Auditor’s staff had discovered when they looked into it. He stated, “... it seems like you follow the regular general county statute, which is July 15. By that date, your board has to approve its budget. So, technically, I think your board has already approved the budget, but you have until July 15 to have a complete budget, which needs to be submitted to the Auditor by July 20, and the Budget Commission then needs to make its decision on certification by September 1, which is the regular county schedule.” He stressed that this understanding was based on the Auditor’s Office internal review only and it is GPH’s responsibility to figure out on its own if this is correct. Mr. Antenucci noted that at the annual HDAC (Health District Advisory Council) meeting in March, GPH is required to give “an accounting or understanding of your financials.”
Mr. Flaiz concurred that GPH’s budget process “should just be on the normal cycle with everybody else.” The Budget Commission then voted to add the 2027 GPH Budget Hearing to the County Budget Hearings in August, meaning its Budget Hearing that was tabled on June 1 will be reconvened then. Observer Note: The Budget Hearings are on August 17 and 18. GPH will be added to the schedule, but which day and time is not known yet.
Russell Township’s Amendment #2 was tabled at the previous Budget Commission meeting to allow time to review it. Mr. Antenucci said he asked for additional information that was just received a few days ago. He said he had not had the opportunity to go through it all yet and thought that the rest of the board should review it as well. Mr. Flaiz asked, “are they trying to do stuff with reserve funds?” and was told this was the case. He went on to say, “they have a bunch of reserve funds, they want to put a bunch of money in there because they have too much money, seemingly. I'm not prejudging, but they seem to have an overabundance of funds, so they're trying to put them into reserve funds before they have to do their budget…. We need to find out, ‘what is your reserve study?’ in order to put caps on these.” Mr. Antenucci replied “I couldn’t see the justification in the existing reserve studies for the money they're moving now, that's what I don't understand. It seems- I don't want to come to an ultimate conclusion- it seems arbitrary, throwing the dollars in without the study dictating what dollars should go in. That's where I'm at right now, but I haven't gotten through everything yet.” Mr. Hitchcock opined that Russell is “... trying to obfuscate the issue of cash reserves.” Mr. Antenucci said that could be accurate, or there could be “something we're missing in there in terms of tying back to the old reserve studies.”
Mr. Hitchcock said he recently attended Russell’s budget hearing, and he indicated that the Russell Trustees may be trying to find a way to return “perhaps a million dollars to the taxpayers.” He said that he was asked how best to put together a plan, and he advised them to “consult a Ouija board.”
Mr. Flaiz observed that the deadline for the Trustees to approve the budget was July 15 and that was only a month away. Mr. Antenucci asked if Russell had a Fiscal Officer appointed yet, and the Auditor’s staff said they have not been advised of an appointment yet. There was uncertainty about whether or not a temporary Fiscal Officer was in place. Observer Note: Russell Township Fiscal Officer Karen Walder resigned effective June 5. More information is available here.
The Budget Commission voted to table Russell’s amendment again.
Ms. Hess said that the information needed to update the fire district map originally discussed at the May 4, 2026 Budget Commission meeting was “trickling in” from the fire districts.
A draft letter to the County Commissioners was reviewed by the Budget Commission. Mr. Flaiz asked Mr. Hitchcock about how his department’s Budget Hearing before the County Commissioners went, and Mr. Hitchcock indicated that it was largely focused on the Budget Commission rather than the Treasury. The Budget Commission voted to send the letter to the Commissioners. Observer Note: A copy of this letter was provided to this Observer via email. It states:
During the recent budget hearing for the Geauga County Treasurer's Office, County Administrator Amy Bevan raised the question of how the Geauga County Budget Commission, and the Board of County Commissioners might work more collaboratively regarding county finances and the annual budget process.
The Budget Commission welcomes that discussion and believes that open communication, transparency, and collaboration are essential to responsible fiscal stewardship on behalf of Geauga County taxpayers. In that spirit, the Budget Commission believes the most constructive next step would be for the Board of County Commissioners to participate in the Budget Commission's review of the Commissioners' proposed Fiscal Year 2027 budget, which is anticipated to occur during the Commission's August 2026 budget hearing schedule.
To facilitate that collaboration, the Budget Commission formally requests that the Board of County Commissioners convene a properly noticed public meeting concurrent with the Budget Commission hearing. Such a meeting would allow all three Commissioners, the County Administrator, and appropriate budget staff to participate fully in the discussion. A concurrent public meeting involving both bodies would provide an opportunity for a transparent and collaborative review of the County's financial priorities, fiscal assumptions, revenue projections, expenditure planning, and long-term financial outlook.
An email from a member of the public regarding environmental concerns was shared with the Budget Commissioners.
Public Comment:
-
This Observer asked for and received confirmation that Geauga Public Health’s Budget Hearing will be resumed in August.
-
The Observer also asked for confirmation that HDAC doesn’t have to approve the GPH budget. Mr. Antenucci said it was complicated: “If you read the statute on that, the law does not specifically say the HDAC has to approve the budget, nor be aware of the budget. It sort of talks about an accounting of financials.” Mr. Flaiz added that it was uncertain if the statute refers to a review of the prior year’s spending or rather an accounting of future anticipated spending.
-
This Observer requested a copy of all materials from this meeting, which were received via email on June 15 and 17, 2026.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:48 am.
Next Meeting: The next Budget Commission Meeting will be a Special Meeting for Local School District Year End Financials and Regular Business on Monday, June 29, 2026 at 10:00 am in the Auditor's Conference Room, 215 Main Street, Chardon. Virtual attendance for Budget Commission meetings is available via Microsoft Teams by emailing an invitation request to Ms. McMahan at PMcMahan@geauga.oh.gov.
Observer: Sarah McGlone
Editor: Rooney Moy
Reviewer: Carol Benton
Submitted: June 18, 2026
The League of Women Voters of Geauga is a 501(c)(3) nonpartisan political organization that encourages informed and active participation in government, works to increase understanding of major public policy issues, and influences public policy through education and advocacy. They do not support or oppose individual candidates or parties. Learn more about the LWVG at www.lwvgeauga.org.