Poland Township Trustees have been warned that the township would be in “fiscal caution” if cuts are not made. Michael Neenan explains the situation that the township is facing and what could happen if the funding doesn’t come from somewhere.
Poland Township Trustees consider cuts after they were warned of potential fiscal caution in 2027 due to deficits in their police and zoning funds.
Fiscal officer Paul Canter says the township’s police fund is projected to be in a deficit of $678,538 by the end of 2027, while its zoning fund would be at a deficit of $51,851.
Their general fund is projected to contain $126,835 at the end of 2027, which would not be enough to subsidize police and zoning.
A municipality may be declared to be in fiscal caution by the Ohio Auditor of State if, at the end of the year, a deficit fund balance exists in the general fund, or if there is a deficit in any other fund and the general fund is unable to subsidize it, according to the Ohio Auditor of State’s website.
If a municipality is found to be in fiscal caution, they are given 60 days to submit a written proposal for how they plan to correct fiscal practices, and may be escalated to fiscal watch or fiscal emergency if the municipality fails to comply or does not provide reasonable proposals.
Poland Township’s police fund has been subsidized by its general fund for decades, but Canter says increased costs and expansions to the police department have rendered this model insufficient.
An increase to the police levy has not passed in the township since 1996.
Trustees Frank DeMain and Edward Kempers suggested they speak to department heads about what cuts they could make, but consider layoffs to be a last resort.
“My gut feeling is we’re gonna have to cut some people pretty soon, and I would like it to be as few as possible, and then revisit it maybe in January first, and see where we are then; maybe it will have to be more, may not, but we just have to cut costs,” Kempers said.
Trustee Eric Ungaro said during the meeting that he did not want to take action until the township received advance real estate tax revenue from the county, which Canter says was supposed to arrive at the end of July.
“Seventy percent of the townships in the state of Ohio are in a similar situation because the state screwed it up,” Ungaro said.
Canter tells 21 News that Poland Township may run out of money sooner if they do not receive property tax advances.
“If we get no advances, and we pay very minimal bills, we probably have, I would say, a month before we’re not gonna be able to make payroll,” he said.
Last week, 21 News reported that the township faced a $1,678 budget deficit by the end of 2026 according to their tax budget.
Canter says he refiled another tax budget since then to account for an additional $116,000 that was added to their general fund from a 2018 Road Levy that contained unused funds, which puts them in the positive for the end of 2026.
“We ended up petitioning the Court of Common Pleas and said ‘could we move that to the general fund,’ and they gave us permission to do that,” he said.
Trustees previously discussed a police levy for the November ballot for a 3-mill increase that would have brought in about $1.5 million, but trustee Frank DeMain told 21 News that the township would not have been able to meet the deadline for approval by Wednesday, Aug. 5 at 4 p.m., or 90 days before the election.
Poland Township trustees meet again Wednesday, Aug. 12 at 6 p.m. at the Poland Township Government Center on Dobbins Road.
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