By Rick Palsgrove
Southeast Editor
Groveport City Council has approved the city’s 2017 budget.
The general fund budget for 2017 is $15.9 million, up from $15.6 million in 2016.
To build a financial cushion, council directed city officials, when working on the next two years’ budgets, to add 20 percent to the general fund balance each year until it reaches an ending balance between $1.5 million to $2 million. The general fund balance at the end of 2016 is expected to be around $714,430 and about $1.4 million at the end of 2017.
The budget also increases the annual contribution to the rainy day fund from $100,000 to $150,000 with the goal of eventually reaching a balance of $2 million. The estimated 2016 year end balance for this fund is $633,333.
The budget raises the amount from income tax revenues paid to the debt service fund balance from 15 to 20 percent.
Budgeted projects in 2017 include:
•The $2.2 million Hendron Road reconstruction project from Main Street to Glendening Drive, which is funded by an Ohio Public Works Commission grant of $447,000 a no interest loan of $1.3 million from the county, with the remainder from local funding.
•The West Bixby Road reconstruction project from Bixby Ridge Drive east to a point in front of Madison Christian School. This project is funded with an Ohio Public Works Commission grant of $407,065, a no interest loan of $254,500, and local funding of $80,000.
•East Bixby Road repaving from Ebright Road to U.S. Route 33 at an estimated cost of $46,000 to be appropriated this year for engineering and $396,100 estimated for 2017 construction costs. It is a city funded project as no grant or loan was obtained for it. According to City Administrator Marsha Hall, the work will be bid the same time as the 2017 Street Maintenance Program to get better costs.
•Annual street maintenance program at an estimated cost of $450,000. Depending on funding, the streets to possibly be done in 2017 are those in the Hanstein Addition, Elm Street from West Street to the Ace Hardware parking lot, Tallman Street near Green Street, Hendron Road north of State Route 317, Marketing Place, and the public parking lot along Wirt Road behind the Main Street businesses.
The 2017 budget includes these other planned expenditures: painting the recreation center’s indoor pool ceiling and walls, $105,500; police radios, $15,400; tuckpointing Town Hall, $10,000; senior transportation van, $11,000 (plus $44,000 from a grant); GREAT bus stop for city’s shuttle bus transportation program that serves the industrial parks, $10,000; sprayer for golf course, $60,000; roof replacement over banquet portion of golf club house, $32,000; sidewalk replacement, $50,000 (the sidewalk repairs are not assessed to property owners); park equipment, $75,000; Fourth of July celebration, $47,500; Apple Butter Day, $18,250; and the replacement of the full fleet of golf carts at the city-owned The Links at Groveport golf course at an estimated cost of $284,512. (The 78 carts will be leased for four years with the city taking ownership of the carts at the end of the lease agreement.)
