Morrow County staff outline uses for CREZ and SIP payments; sheriff, EMS funds singled out for special handling

Morrow County staff reported to commissioners at a work session that the county has received multiple distributions from CREZ 2 and CREZ 3, some restricted to specific uses and others recorded as general capital resources. County staff said they have recorded the payments in the county’s accounting system and outlined options for how the board might allocate the unspent funds during the fiscal-year budgeting process.

Matt, a county staff member who presented the accounting recap, said the board received a mix of restricted and unrestricted CREZ distributions in the current fiscal year. Matt said the county recorded a $100,000 CREZ 2 distribution to the sheriff’s office in September; in January the county received an $80,325 sheriff-restricted distribution and a roughly $241,000 distribution restricted for ambulance services; and a $2,012,000 distribution to the county that staff recorded into the capital improvement projects (CIP) fund as an unallocated resource. Matt also said CREZ 3 received a $5,000,000 community development fee from Amazon, which produced a $1,000,000 county distribution restricted for capital improvements; and that the Morrow County Clean Water Consortium received $500,000 from CREZ 3 and $400,000 from CREZ 2, which the county booked to a fiduciary fund governed by the consortium’s fiscal-agency agreement.

Why it matters: the largest unrestricted sums sit in the county CIP fund but are not yet allocated to specific projects, while the restricted sheriff and EMS payments create immediate choices about whether to use one-time dollars for capital acquisitions, ongoing operations, or to hold as reserves.

Sheriff’s office funds and proposals

Sheriff Brian told commissioners the sheriff’s office has already used about $24,000 of an earlier $100,000 tranche to buy search-and-rescue snowmobiles and that the combined unspent balance restricted to the sheriff’s office is $156,277.42. Brian presented potential uses, including two additional snowmobiles to expand search-and-rescue capacity and replacement rifles he estimated would cost roughly $70,000–$85,000 depending on trade-ins. "We would be setting pretty good with our search and rescue program," Brian said when describing the snowmobile purchase.

Matt recommended three ranked options for the sheriff-restricted funds: 1) fund special projects or acquisitions outside the normal departmental budget (his preferred option); 2) offset regularly budgeted capital outlay such as annual vehicle replacements; or 3) apply the funds to general operating expenses (he warned against this as a preferred use). "I consistently advocate that we should not use limited, duration resources or one-time resources for anything that's ongoing or operating in nature," Matt said.

Commissioners generally supported using the sheriff-restricted funds for capital or special projects rather than ongoing operating costs and directed staff to track the sums in the general fund’s subsidiary project accounting so they can be carried forward and considered in the regular budget process.

Ambulance-service distribution and recommended treatment

On the ambulance-related distribution (about $241,000), Matt described two options: apply the money against the EMS annual operating expenses while increasing the county’s operating contingency by the same amount to avoid depending on the CREZ payment in future years, or hold the payment in a restricted reserve for ambulance services.

Matt said the county’s current-year ambulance-related expenditures total just over $1.5 million, noting that $932,000 of this year’s expense was covered with ARPA funds in order to meet federal deadlines and that future funding should be stabilized in the general fund or through an added contingency. "If that's the direction that we remain with this, I would … calculate our general fund operating contingency, set that, and then add $241,000 on top of that," Matt said, describing his recommended fiscal safeguard. Commissioners agreed that either approach would be acceptable and consistent with prior commitments to the CREZ funders.

Other distributions and bookkeeping

Matt said the $2,012,000 county distribution and the $1,000,000 CREZ 3 distribution tied to Amazon were recorded into the CIP fund and are not yet allocated to specific projects. He noted the county has significant capital needs and expects to prioritize projects as the county finalizes its capital plan in the budget process. The Clean Water Consortium distributions were recorded to a fiduciary fund and will be governed by the consortium’s fiscal-agency agreement.

Next steps and board direction

No formal vote was taken in the work session. Commissioners told staff to continue tracking CREZ and SIP receipts through the county’s project accounting and to present specific allocation requests during the regular budget process or at a future board meeting if a project requires earlier action. Matt said he would proceed with the accounting approach described unless the board objected.

The county did not finalize allocations during the work session; commissioners signaled support for treating the sheriff-restricted payments as candidate capital/special-project funding and for applying ambulance-restricted payments to operating expense with contingency protections or to a restricted reserve, to be confirmed in the formal budget cycle.