LFC Comments by: Brian Massie, Concord resident:
We have been writing about “Local Government Funds” since 2016. Here is an earlier article dealing with the funds.
We have updated our research on the Local Government Funds, and the following is the report showing the distribution of the State funds for calendar year 2020. We have also added the population statistics for 2020 versus 2010. Unfortunately, Lake County has only increased by 2,198 (.96%) since 2010.
Another interesting statistic is the average $ received per person for each municipality. Fellow residents of Concord Township, please note that our Township has the lowest distribution per person [$6.81] in all of Lake County. We will reveal the impact a bit later in the article.
Let’s take a look at the actual CY 2020 distributions based on city / township / village.
The average distribution for the municipalities is $39.50 per person. [$9,172,743.37 / 232,239].
The townships, and especially Concord Township, are being short-changed. If Concord was paid the average $ per person distribution of $39.50, they would have realized an additional $629,391 for calendar year 2020. [($39.50 – $6.81) x 19,254 people = $629,391]. It is important to realize that the formula for the distribution was created in 1982, and certainly bears no reflection on what the current Trustees or Administrator, Mr. Andy Rose, has done or did not do.
What would the distributions look like if all municipalities were paid the average $39.50 per person? We created the following schedule to answer that question.
If the formula was changed to pay an average of $39.50 per person in each municipality, 14 would realize a decrease in their distribution and 9 would realize an increase. The City of Mentor has been mentioned as the one getting the lion’s share of the distribution, but they would receive more money if they were paid the average $ per person.
We sent an initial draft (before we had the 2020 census results) of our worksheet to the Lake County Auditor, and former Concord Trustee, Mr. Chris Galloway. Mr. Galloway was kind enough to respond to our concerns about the inequities of the Local Government Funds distributions.
IMO what the existing formula reflects is which communities had political power and sway in 1982. My suspicion is that the formula was negotiated by the members of the Mayors & Managers Association. And townships were not invited to be a part of that group until I became trustee and forced the issue. I felt informal decisions were being made that affected county governance and townships were not at the table and we needed to be bc we were growing and represented ~35% of the county. Happy to report that townships are now members in M&M and today the local leadership is fully collaboratory. Any update to the formula will need to be a collaboration, but to your point, will be a challenge because inevitably there are winners and losers in a redistribution.
…Lake County Auditor Chris Galloway
We will be speaking to the Lake County Commissioners and the Concord Township officials to determine if we can realistically expect a change in the formula to ensure equality, or will Concord Township continue to be, as Mr. Chris Galloway stated when he was a Concord Trustee, a “donor community”.
We will update this article as we obtain additional information for you.
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Categories: Concord, Lake County Cities & Townships, Local News, Uncategorized