By Brett Milam
Editor
The Franklin Township board of trustees met on March 6 to discuss a variety of matters. Those included:
– Dave Gibson, superintendent for the Felicity-Franklin Local School District, presented to the board a status report about the district.
The vast majority of the school district’s funding, 64 percent, comes from state funding. Another 12 percent is real estate taxes, and then 5 percent from public utility taxes and federal funding, respectively, according to a handout Gibson provided.
However, because of the district relying on a new public utility, the Ohio Department of Education is slated to do a one-time cut of $400,026. When the public utility valuation increases by 10 percent, the Ohio Revised Code requires that cut, Gibson said.
The public utility is the new substation on Chilo Cemetery Road, which will bring in new revenue. But on the other end is that loss in state funding.
“Now it’ll eventually correct itself; this is a one-time loss, but it’s hard to lose $400,000 out of any budget,” Gibson said.
Since 2013, the district has also lost $347,159 in federal funding.
The district’s overall budget is about $13 million, with 829 students enrolled and of those, 458 are considered economically disadvantaged.
Despite all of that, Gibson said the district is financially healthy due to decisions made over the last five years to build some rainy day funding.
Additionally, in the current tax year, the district paid off a 1.25 mill bond for construction that started in 1997.
“So the bond issue that they have been collecting on our property owners for the last 20 years is now off the books for us,” he said.
Gibson said he thinks the district’s athletics are getting better and that he loves to brag about the local Future Farms of America program.
“Our school district is as competitive as any other district in Clermont County,” he said.
Each student in grades 5-12 now has a Chromebook, Gibson said.
“I don’t want our kids to ever go to college or the workplace or anywhere and feel that they didn’t have a similar experience; I don’t want them to be fooled or caught of guard,” Gibson said, about kids coming from a rural school district like Felicity-Franklin.
Another thing the district recently did was implement bolo sticks, which is device that goes on the door and acts as locking mechanism or barricade in case of a shooter or other dangerous scenario.
– Brad Moore, fire chief, said Dollar General is set to start construction in the township in April.
Moore also said he’s working on a Federal Emergency Management Agency SAFER Grant, which is the Staffing for Adequate Fire & Emergency Response grants. The federal grant helps smaller departments with staffing.
“Every day, it’s getting harder and harder to get personnel to come work out in the fire service and that’s a problem throughout the country; it’s no different here,” he said.
The SAFER grant would allow the department to hire three additional personnel, which Moore said would allow them to have at least one full-time staffer every three days.
For the first two years, the grant would pay for 75 percent of the staffing, and then the third year 35 percent.
If the township without the grant were to pay for one firefighter/medic for the next three years, it would cost $400,000, Moore said.
Chris Smith and Randy Schadle, trustees, both were concerned with getting into having to pay medical insurance.
No action was taken, although the deadline for the grant to be submitted is March 22.
Moore also gave the board a copy of the International Property Maintenance Code to see about changing the township’s property maintenance code to cite houses with shutters hanging off or too many cars on the lot.
It would make the zoning a little nicer and get more revenue, Moore said.
“This has more teeth than our building code,” he added.
– Smith also talked about the need to trim trees on McKinney, Dunbar and Johnson Roads.
“The one out on McKinney is extremely bad,” he said.
The Dunbar tree is right on the road and close to falling.
The cost for two days would be $1,500 per day, which Smith said would be going up soon because of the difference in seasonal weather.
Russell Tree Service was awarded the bid in a unanimous vote.