MADISON TOWNSHIP — Madison Township trustees approved their 2024 final budget at a special meeting March 25.
The exact appropriations for the year are $4,423,997.83 — which is $444,000 higher than last year’s permanent appropriations.
Fiscal officer Leanna Rhodes said staff salaries and benefits make up the largest fragment of the budget. The township has a current estimated revenue of about $3.38 million.
Trustee Dan Fletcher said this estimated revenue does not account for bank account interest and that he suspects county tax distributions to be higher than auditor Pat Dropsey’s estimates.
“He’s going to reel in the reins and underestimate what he’s going to give us,” Fletcher said.
“That number is $1 million more than our revenue, but we have $400,000 of American Rescue Plan dollars we haven’t appropriated yet.”
Rhodes said the township has more than $7 million available to appropriate if trustees need to. The township still has $226,000 of ARPA funds to appropriate by the end of this year.
Trustees approved a suggestion from Fletcher to add $60,000 for contract services to consider mowing overgrown properties and cleaning up zoning noncompliance issues if residents don’t fix them on their own.
“Mowing season’s coming up, and I’d like to do something about that if the board chooses to,” Fletcher said. “It would be easy to increase appropriations and get some funds to mow lawns and clean up whatever. We can get some quotes from people and go from there.”
Trustee Tom Craft commended Fletcher’s idea.
“How many times have we heard people say ‘Why don’t you just go out there and clean it up?’ ” Craft asked. “That’s a great idea Dan.”
Trustees can decide to reappropriate money between funds if needed at future meetings.
“It would be better if we could do the budget even to our revenue, but we’ve pretty much always overspent our revenue in paving,” Craft said.
Also on Monday, trustees appointed former zoning inspector Wayne Liggett as secretary for the township board of zoning appeals and the zoning commission.
He will take meeting minutes and assist zoning inspector Paul Smith with his responsibilities if needed. The zoning secretary is paid $30 per zoning meeting that they attend.