Parks district approves 2012 budget

By Sarah Einselen

Inquirer Reporter

The Craw­ford Park Dis­trict com­mis­sion­ers approved the 2012 bud­get for the parks sys­tem at a spe­cial meet­ing Mon­day, Dec. 12, and changed the min­i­mum bal­ance required in the rev­enue fund to $27,000, down from the $52,000 min­i­mum set in 2009. Parks direc­tor Bill Fisher requested the min­i­mum bal­ance change so $25,000 of the funds car­ried over could be appro­pri­ated for daily oper­a­tions in 2012.

That appro­pri­a­tion picks up some of the slack that decreased rev­enues will leave. The dis­trict projects bring­ing in about $124,000 in rev­enues in 2012, down from $147,000 the dis­trict bud­geted for 2011. The decrease is mainly because the dis­trict antic­i­pates that local gov­ern­ment funds received from the State of Ohio will shrink about $22,000 to $53,000. The dif­fer­ence is made up by the car­ry­over from 2011, by renewed sup­port from the Friends of the Craw­ford Park Dis­trict and by funds received from Robert Neff’s estate. Neff, a Bucyrus attor­ney, passed away in 2007 and bequeathed his estate to the park district.

“We def­i­nitely are oper­at­ing on more funds than nor­mal income, includ­ing Friends dona­tions, can sup­ply,” said parks direc­tor Bill Fisher. “Those funds have come from estates. That’s what makes our finan­cial future gloomy with­out a levy. We have tried to increase income and decrease expen­di­tures, but the gap is too wide.” Fisher referred to the 0.4-mill levy that the parks com­mis­sion­ers voted to place on the March 2012 ballot.

Bud­geted expenses remain rel­a­tively unchanged from 2011’s bud­get, except for a cou­ple of the small accounts, and total expenses are pro­jected to be about $169,000. Appro­pri­a­tions for mis­cel­la­neous expenses, travel and adver­tis­ing shrunk. The dis­trict does not plan any equip­ment pur­chases, either, besides a pump for Unger Farm and some equip­ment included in a left­over 2011 grant from the Bucyrus Area Com­mu­nity Foundation.

Posted by Sarah Einselen on Dec 28 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.