Morrow County commissioners review CREZ, SIP distributions and options for sheriff, EMS and capital projects funding

Morrow County officials spent part of a work session reviewing recent distributions from CREZ 2 and CREZ 3 and discussing how to record and allocate restricted and general proceeds.

Matt, a county staff member who presented the accountings, said the county had received multiple CREZ-related payments this fiscal year, some restricted and some not. “The county's received a number of, CREZ distributions or distributions from CREZ 2 and CREZ 3,” he said, and then walked commissioners through how those sums were booked into the general fund, the capital improvement projects (CIP) fund and a fiduciary fund for the county clean-water consortium.

The discussion mattered because several of the distributions were restricted to particular uses — notably to the sheriff’s office and to ambulance services — while others were recorded as general CIP revenue and have not been allocated to specific projects. That left commissioners weighing whether to treat the restricted amounts as one-time capital resources, hold proceeds in reserve, or use them to reduce ongoing operating costs.

Matt said the county received an initial $100,000 distribution for the sheriff’s office in September and additional CREZ payments in January that included about $80,325 for the sheriff and about $241,000 for ambulance services. The county also recorded a $2,012,000 unrestricted distribution to the CIP fund, and a $1,000,000 CIP-restricted distribution tied to what the presenter described as AWS-related community development payments. In February, the presenter said, the county received $500,000 (CREZ 3) and $400,000 (CREZ 2) tied to the Morrow County Clean Water Consortium; those sums were recorded in a fiduciary fund governed under a fiscal-agency agreement.

Commissioners and staff described three preferred options for the sheriff-restricted funds: 1) use them for one-time special projects or capital acquisitions that were not in the regular budget cycle; 2) apply them to routine, budgeted capital outlay (for example, vehicle replacements); or 3) offset general operating costs. County staff warned against using one-time, uncertain distributions to fund ongoing personnel or operating commitments. As one staff presenter said, “I consistently, advocate that we we should not use, limited, duration resources or onetime resources for anything that's ongoing or operating in nature.”

A representative of the sheriff’s office outlined candidate one-time projects if commissioners favor option 1, including purchasing two additional snowmobiles to expand search-and-rescue coverage, and replacing aging rifles. The sheriff’s office representative said newer snowmobiles and related equipment would “be a huge asset for the county, and for the sheriff's office.” He estimated rifle replacements at roughly $70,000–$85,000 and said a pair of snowmobiles with trailer and equipment could run in the neighborhood of $50,000–$52,000, while stressing those figures were rough planning numbers.

On the ambulance-service distribution the presenter described two choices: apply the CREZ payment to annual operating expenses while increasing the county’s general-fund operating contingency by the same amount (to avoid creating a structural dependency on an uncertain revenue stream); or hold the CREZ dollars in a restricted reserve for ambulance services to build a buffer for unexpected costs or a service gap. Staff recommended the first option but proposed that contingency be increased to protect the county if the distribution was not repeated in future years.

Staff also described how ARPA funds had been used in the current year to cover part of ambulance-related expenses and noted a current-year ambulance expense run rate of about $1.5 million, of which $932,000 was covered by ARPA in the present year. Presenters said ARPA coverage was a one-time adjustment and that going forward the general fund would bear most ambulance costs absent other dedicated revenue.

Commissioners did not take a formal vote during the work session. Commissioners signaled general support for treating the sheriff-restricted money as available for one-time capital or special projects rather than ongoing operating costs, and for applying the ambulance-related CREZ payment against operating expenses while adding an equivalent amount to the general-fund contingency. Staff indicated they would proceed with accounting entries as described and bring specific project authorizations to a regular board meeting if needed.

The session also noted that prior board action had established a fiduciary fund to receive and manage Clean Water Consortium distributions; the $900,000 total noted for that consortium this year was recorded into that fiduciary fund and governed under the consortium’s fiscal-agency agreement.

Commissioners and staff flagged that CREZ/CRES distributions are not guaranteed from year to year and emphasized the need to avoid building recurring obligations on one-time or uncertain funds. Staff also noted some internal inconsistencies in slide totals and summary comments during the discussion and committed to reconciling totals and presenting firm project cost estimates and formal budget language at a future board meeting.