Trickle down effect

City wants state to invest budget surplus back into municipalities

Avon Lake will consider a resolution urging the governor and Ohio General Assembly to invest the state budget surplus in municipalities.

In an Aug. 20 Avon Lake Collective Committee meeting, Mayor Greg Zilka said a resolution would be considered by Council.

The initiative, being driven by the Ohio Municipal League, cites Ohio’s $147 million budget surplus and the growing needs of local governments in the state.

“From the last six years the cities have experienced the reduction in the budget monies that came from the local government fund that was the income tax that the state collected,” Zilka said.

The mayor stressed due to a recession several

years ago the state cut local government funding used by municipalities, placing more pressure on cities, townships and school boards in providing services and making it more difficult to invest in local infrastructure.

“By reducing local government funds it did force school districts and the

counties and also the municipalities to go back to its residents to increase certain levies and so forth to make up for the loss in order to not have to cut very important services,” Zilka said.

The resolution requests the governor and General Assembly to use the surplus to assist local government bodies by increasing funding at a level proportionate to what the state provided in the past before the cuts to allow cities to invest in

services and infrastructure.

Zilka added Avon Lake has issues in tackling opioid addiction along with local infrastructure and public safety services.

The resolution is open for consideration by Council which is expected to take action on the proposal by Sept. 10.

According to the OML, in the 2015 fiscal year alone local government funding reductions resulted in a loss of $435 million across the state.