What Happens Next Is On Us, and I am Okay With That!

On September 14, 2026, the Geauga County Budget Commission approved Russell Township's 2027 budget with about $1.7 million in levy collections being withheld for one year.

That number is higher than what the Township formally proposed to the Budget Commission, but there is an important part of the history that needs to be clear.

Before this process reached the Budget Commission, I was already on the record supporting a larger one-year reduction in levy collections than the Board ultimately adopted while I was away on vacation.

My proposal was to reduce collections by 1.5 mills from the police levy and 1.0 mill from the road levy for 2027.

The Board ultimately adopted a smaller reduction.

So the disagreement was never about whether Russell Township should provide tax relief in 2027.

I believed we should.

The disagreement was about how much could responsibly be returned to taxpayers without putting essential services at risk.

That distinction matters.

What Was Decided

The final Budget Commission action reduces police and road-and-bridge levy collections for 2027.

Fire and EMS collections were left alone.

The Commission also required Russell Township to fully fund its reserve accounts for 2027, in accordance with our Miller Dodson reserve studies.

That matters.

These reserves are meant to help us plan for items we know will eventually need repair or replacement: vehicles, roofs, buildings, equipment, and other major expenses.

The Commission's criticism was straightforward: if we have studies telling us how much we should be saving for those future costs, we should actually follow them.

I agree.

This is also important: the reduction ultimately adopted is not a defunding of the Russell Township Police Department.

It does not require police layoffs.

It does not eliminate police services.

It is a one-year reduction in the amount of money the Township will collect and hold.

But that does not mean my earlier concerns about much deeper cuts were unfounded.

During this process, Treasurer Chris Hitchcock proposed reducing Russell Township's available cash to a 30 percent carryover.

At the hearing, that was calculated to mean suppressing approximately $2.9 million in levy collections.

That proposal was later withdrawn.

A reduction approaching $2.9 million was very different from either the tax relief I had proposed or the approximately $1.7 million ultimately adopted.

In my judgment, a cut of that size could have forced this Township to make real decisions about staffing, equipment, and services, including police services.

That is what I was warning about when I raised concerns about defunding our police.

The final number does not put us in that position.

I think it is important to say both things plainly.

I supported tax relief before the Budget Commission acted.

I supported more tax relief than the Board ultimately approved while I was away.

I also opposed taking that relief so far that we risked harming essential services.

Those positions are not inconsistent.

They are what responsible budgeting is supposed to look like.

Thank You

I want to thank the residents who wrote letters to the editor last week in support of the Township.

I know what it takes to put your name on something in a small community.

You did not have to do it, and it meant a great deal.

I also want to thank the residents who came to the hearing, including those who disagreed with me and asked the Commission to go further.

That is what public meetings are supposed to look like.

Disagreeing with an elected official in public is not a problem.

It is part of representative government.

Some of the Criticism Was Fair

Two criticisms from the Budget Commission landed with me, and I am not going to pretend otherwise.

First, we have not been following our own reserve studies.

Our proposed 2027 budget put nothing into several reserve accounts, underfunded others, and put more than recommended into a couple of them.

I cannot defend that.

If we pay experts to tell us how much money we should set aside to replace vehicles, repair buildings, and maintain Township assets, then we should either follow that plan or publicly explain why we are changing it.

Second, we budget money for projects that sometimes do not get completed.

The administration building siding is one example.

The old town hall is another.

The road garage has been debated for years.

When money is budgeted for a project, but the project does not happen, that money remains in our accounts.

Then January comes, the money carries forward, and we have to explain why we are holding so much cash.

That cycle needs to stop. These are Board decisions.

Budgets are approved by the Board of Trustees in public meetings.

Whatever else happened before we arrived here, this part belongs to us.

Why the Reserves Matter

This was probably the most important thing I learned from this process.

There is a major difference between simply having money sitting in an account and having money formally set aside for a documented future expense.

Suppose we know a fire truck will eventually need to be replaced.

If we have a professional reserve study that says how much we should save each year toward that truck, and we actually put that money into the reserve, we can clearly explain why the money is there.

The same applies to buildings, police vehicles, road equipment, roofs, and other expensive assets.

But if we simply keep piling up cash without clearly tying it to those future expenses, it begins to look like money we do not need.

That makes it much easier for the Budget Commission to say: you do not need to collect as much from taxpayers next year.

That is the lesson.

We need to stop simply holding money and start clearly planning what it's for.

This Did Not Start in 2026

Some of these problems are older than this Board.

The old town hall has appeared in budgets for years.

The road garage has gone a long time without major maintenance while its future has been debated.

Our reserve schedules have not always been followed consistently.

That is useful context.

It is not an excuse.

Everyone who sits in one of these chairs inherits something from the people who came before them.

The question is not who started it.

The question is who fixes it.

That is us.

What I Am Asking This Board to Do

First, fully fund our reserves.

I want the Board of Trustees to formally commit, in a public meeting, to funding every reserve account according to the appropriate Miller Dodson study beginning January 1, 2027.

Second, show residents what we budgeted and what we actually spent.

Every quarter, we should publicly compare the budget with actual spending.

If we budget $100,000 for a building project, residents should be able to see whether the work happened.

Third, finish the loop on projects we approve.

When the Board says, “Get quotes,” there should eventually be a public answer:

What were the quotes?

What did we decide?

Did the work happen?

That simple habit would eliminate a lot of confusion.

Fourth, publish the road paving schedule.

Residents should be able to go to the Township website and find out approximately when their road is scheduled for paving.

We already have this information.

We should publish it.

Fifth, build a regular working relationship between the Board and our new Fiscal Officer.

We need regular discussions about balances, spending, reserves, and major projects so nobody is learning these numbers for the first time during a Budget Commission hearing.

I also want to work with our new Fiscal Officer, administrator, chiefs, and department heads to ensure the useful feedback we received during this process is implemented.

Finally, build a better working relationship with the Budget Commission.

I did not attend the earlier Budget Commission meetings during this process.

There were two reasons for that.

First, I have a full-time job.

My employer has been very gracious in accommodating the scheduling demands that come with serving in elected office, but I also have responsibilities to my patients.

With a full patient schedule, I cannot always attend weekday meetings called on short notice.

Second, I was advised by counsel not to attend those meetings, and I followed that advice.

I also was not interested in taking time away from work to walk into a setting where I believed the conversation had become more personal than productive and where I expected to be talked down to rather than worked with.

That does not mean I want that relationship to remain where it has been.

Quite the opposite.

I have now spoken twice with Auditor-elect DeBoth, and I appreciate those conversations.

I look forward to working with the Auditor's Office and the Budget Commission to build a more collaborative relationship.

We are going to disagree sometimes.

That is part of government.

But disagreement does not require hostility.

Russell Township should come to these meetings prepared with good numbers, clear answers, and a willingness to listen.

I expect the same level of professionalism and respect in return.

That is the relationship I want to help build.

One Thing Residents Need to Remember

Your 2027 tax bill should reflect this one-year reduction.

But those collections may return the following year.

That means your 2027 tax bill should not become the number you use to judge future tax requests.

This was one of the more useful warnings made during the hearing.

A temporary reduction can feel permanent very quickly.

Then, when the suppressed taxes are reinstated, people understandably feel like their taxes have suddenly increased.

So if Russell Township eventually asks voters to approve another levy, do not compare that request only with the unusually lower 2027 bill.

Look at the bigger picture.

Where I Land

I can live with this outcome.

And I want to be very clear about where I stood before we got here.

I was not arguing that Russell Township should collect every dollar available to it.

Quite the opposite.

I had already publicly supported reducing the police levy by 1.5 mills and the road levy by 1.0 mill for 2027.

While I was away on vacation, the Board adopted a smaller reduction than the one I had advocated.

So when I later warned about proposals approaching $3 million, I was not suddenly defending the status quo or opposing tax relief.

I was drawing a line between responsible tax relief and a reduction large enough to threaten services.

The approximately $1.7 million reduction ultimately adopted by the Budget Commission falls on the responsible side of that line.

I believe we can manage it without reducing police, fire, EMS, or road services.

That is different from the cuts approaching $2.9 million that were discussed during this process, which I believed could have put police services at risk.

Both things can be true:

Russell Township could afford to give taxpayers more relief than the Board originally proposed.

And:

There was still a point at which additional cuts could have begun to harm the services residents depend on.

The Budget Commission landed between those two points.

So September 14 did not introduce me to these problems.

It reinforced why I have been talking about them since before I was elected.

We need to fund the reserves properly.

We need to finish the projects we budget for.

We need to know our numbers.

We need to publish more financial information.

And we need to stop carrying the same unfinished projects and unanswered financial questions from one budget year into the next.

This is not a new agenda for me.

It is one of the reasons I ran for Trustee in the first place.

I am willing to work with anyone who wants to make Russell Township run better: my fellow trustees, our new Fiscal Officer, our administrator, our chiefs and department heads, the Budget Commission, and residents.

Some of the people involved in this process and I have disagreed, sometimes strongly.

That is not going to disappear.

But the goal now should be to turn those disagreements into better systems.

That is the work ahead.

It's time to row the boat.

The views expressed here are mine only and are intended to keep residents informed about township issues. Decisions of the Russell Township Board of Trustees are made only during public meetings.