Emergency over in Waynesville

Levy renewal key to future

The Village of Waynesville’s fiscal emergency is over, at least temporarily.

On Tuesday, Ohio Auditor of State David Yost officially ended the emergency, declared six years ago after auditors found more than $230,000 in deficits in the local government’s fund balances.

While ending the emergency, the state left open the possibility of a return to financial problems.

“Some assumptions inevitably will not materialize and unanticipated events and circumstances may occur,” Yost said in a letter.

The state ended the emergency after the village corrected its accounting discrepancies and built fund surpluses, thanks largely to a 1-percent earnings tax which raises about $400,000 a year.

In the May 6 election, village voters are considering the renewal of the tax - which expires on June 30, 2015 - for another five years.

Waynesville Mayor David Stubbs said, after conferring with the state, village officials planned for the end of the emergency to be announced close to the the May levy election.

“This was all planned,” Stubbs said. “We wanted to ask the question early.”

This weekend, Stubbs and levy supporters will begin a door-to-door campaign at the village’s 970 residences.

They plan to promote the village’s administration and halving of the village’s long-term debt on the government center to about $600,000. Renewal would also mean better roads, as well as other infrastructure improvements, Stubbs said.

The levy took effect after a May 2010 referendum, in which village voters supported, 418 to 307, a 1-percent income tax. The council enacted the tax in December 2009 after a levy proposal failed, 700 to 315, in November 2009.

“As bad as I hate to say it, we probably need it,” Councilman Earl Isaacs, the only member of council to vote against imposing the tax in 2009, said Wednesday. “It’s up to the voters.”

While hopeful, Stubbs said the village could be headed back into financial problems if voters rejected the renewal.

“We’ll have to tighten our belts and be right back in the place we were six years ago,” he said.

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