The Darke County Commissioners (L to R): Matt Aultman, Marshall Combs and Larry Holmes.
Photo by Meladi Brewer | The Daily Advocate
By Drew Terhall
DailyAdvocate.com
GREENVILLE — The last Darke County Commissioners meeting for 2023 took place on Dec. 28.
The last session was mainly about agreeing to renewing a grant and a service agreement while looking forward to their 2024 appropriations.
Darke County Auditor Carol Ginn submitted the 2024 Estimated Revenue and Appropriations for the commissioners approval.
Ginn said 67 departments in the County General Fund represents $37,653,251 in appropriations while 109 funds outside the general funds represents $75,235,474.40. That brings the total appropriations to $112,888,725.40.
There was a bit of a change prior to the meeting on the number. Commissioner Matt Aultman said they didn’t receive a contract from the public defender group until the morning.
“The change in differential is we got our defense contract this morning from the public defender group. These numbers reflect some of those changes with that,” Aultman said.
The only debt left is from a non-interest bearing loan with the Ohio Water Development from 2016. It’s a 20-year loan that was taken for the South Industrial Park project. As of Dec. 31, 2023, the balance is $404,290.70. The yearly payments are $32,343.24.
The commissioners also approved a 2024 wellness grant from County Employee Benefit Consortium of Ohio. The Administrative Funds from the grant is $4,000 while the Program Funds is $8,400.
The Administrative Funds are used towards the salaries of the county employees. The Program Funds are used to help fund wellness-related events.
It’s a grant that helps bring more to the county employees medical plan. Aultman said they fill out the grant on an annual basis and they do put that money to use.
“This has helped pay for education, different equipment and things around the county. Twice a year, we have the employee health fair and things like that, this helps offset those so it isn’t county dollars,” Aultman said.
Lastly, the commissioners renewed a service agreement with Slagle Mechanical to provide maintenance service to the boilers in many different county buildings.
Aultman said while it’s a renewed service, they will pay $300 more based on rising costs. He also said it’s a minimum raise for the services. They will pay $6,600 for it.
Contact Daily Advocate Drew Terhall at [email protected]
