Mayor, township at odds over dispatch expenses

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The Lake Township budget for emergency dispatching service expenses has become a topic of discussion between officials of the township and Village of Walbridge.
Brian Ballenger, village solicitor, in an Aug. 21 letter to David Smigelski, township solicitor, says the village has been in contact with the Ohio Auditor’s office on the matter.
“The initial recommendation from the auditor’s office is to contact Lake Township formally and apprise the auditor of a continuing status,” Ballenger’s letter concludes.
At issue is an agreement, in effect since 2015, the township has with the Wood County Sheriff’s Office for emergency dispatching service. The village and township are billed separately based on population and the sheriff charges only full-time police departments for the service but not for fire and EMS departments dispatching service.
The Lake Township Fire/EMS Department is funded by property taxes levied in the villages of Walbridge and Millbury and the unincorporated area of the township. The township funds its police department with property tax levies in the unincorporated area of the township while the village funds its own police department with its municipal income tax revenues.
“Curiously, Lake Township has line items in their fire and EMS budgets for dispatching service expenses of the Wood County Sheriff’s Office,” Ballenger writes. “Appropriations have been made, and continue to be made, from these budgets for this Lake Township Police Department expense. The Wood County Sheriff’s Office does not charge for fire and EMS dispatching, and it does appear the citizens of the Village of Walbridge are paying for the Lake Township Police dispatching expense via the current fire and EMS property levies. Upon further review, it also appears this budgetary practice has occurred since the billing by the Wood County Sheriff’s Office began in 2015.”
Walbridge Mayor Ed Kolanko and township trustee Melanie Bowen-Greenwald also discussed the matter in an email exchange on Aug. 12.
Bowen-Greenwald enclosed a copy of a month’s billing from the sheriff’s office.
“As you can see, it bills the township for dispatching service – it does not state police service only,” she wrote. ”While police call volume is generally higher, EMS calls are more labor intensive, creating more work for the dispatch center.”
The dispatch agreement between the township and sheriff’s office states the sheriff’s responsibilities are to: “Receive, process and promptly transmit to the appropriate township personnel all emergency calls for police, fire and EMS services…”
But in his response to Bowen-Greenwald, mayor Kolanko writes: “If the sheriff does not charge for a specific service, I question how you can use Fire/EMS taxpayer dollars to pay expenses dedicated to full-time police departments.
“If your methodology and reasoning is deemed correct, then you should have no issues with the Lake Township Fire/EMS budgets absorbing 66 percent of the Walbridge Police Department dispatching expense. We are all in the same township – and should allocate the expenses accordingly.”
The mayor further wrote: “If Lake Township dispatching expenses are split between police and fire/EMS budgets then so should the same expense of the Village of Walbridge.”
Mayor Kolanko and Bowen-Greenwald agreed the sheriff has indicated to them he isn’t concerned how the entities apportion and pay the bill.
Voters in the two villages and unincorporated area of the township will decide two levies on the Nov. 5 ballot for EMS and fire protection. A 1-mill, 5-year levy for fire protection is up for renewal and there is a request for an additional1.5-mills for ambulance service or Emergency Medical Service on the ballot. The additional millage request will also be in effect for five years if passed.
Mayor Kolanko last week said he learned of the line item issue when attending a meeting July 1 to discuss budgetary issues and the levies. Millbury Mayor Michael Timmons, Bowen-Greenwald, and John Ervin, township fiscal officer, also attended the meeting.
Budget data for 2024 provided to him shows a line item of $86,700 for dispatching in the fire and EMS budget, he said.