Friday, April 07, 2000
Village, county clash over cash
BY CINDI ANDREWS
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HARVEYSBURG — The village doesn't intend to pay Warren County tens of thousands of dollars in water department money it spent before turning the department over to the county.
That money — at least $62,000 — was not part of the deal with the county, Mayor Woody Andrew and village attorney Pat Long said Thursday.
“We told the county exactly what they were going to get dollar-wise,” Mr. Long said.
That, however, is not how the county sees it.
Talks about the county taking over the village water department began last summer, after Harveysburg learned it would have to build a new water tower to comply with environmental standards. The town of 500 in northeastern Warren County, no stranger to financial troubles, couldn't afford to do that.
By fall, Village Council meeting minutes indicate, the sides were just ironing out the details. The transfer was completed in late January with these terms:
• The county would assume the village's $186,000 debt, still owed from when the water department was started in 1985.
• The county said it would build a 250,000-gallon water tower.
• Harveysburg would turn over “all properties which were purchased or acquired for the construction, operation and maintenance of all water system improvements.”
• The village would give the county “all funds within the Water Fund” as well as money received for unpaid water bills owed to the village that were collected after the transfer.
As far as county officials knew, the village had $8,000 in a water reserve fund, and that was turned over to the county.
Turns out, however, that as recently as last spring, Harveysburg had at least $70,000 in water reserve money, Mayor Andrew confirmed Thursday.
The $62,000 that the county never knew about helped cover cost overruns on a storage building, and bought a dump truck and property for a parking lot, Mr. Andrew said. It's not clear just when the money was spent.
The county administrator, upon learning last week of the village's spending spree, said because the items were bought with water department money, they are property of the water department and of the county. The county doesn't want Harveysburg's truck and building, Bob Price added, but rather will set up a payment plan with the village.
Sanitary Engineer Dick Renneker is trying to set up a meeting with Harveysburg officials regarding the money.
They don't believe the county has any claim to the money, however.
“That was before we had actually decided to go with the county water system,” Mr. Andrew said.
As it is, the village — which has an annual budget of about $100,000 — is worried about how to pay the county $16,000 for back water bills that it's supposed to collect.
“Somehow we're going to have to come to grips with that,” said Mr. Long, who is mayor of Carlisle as well as Harveysburg's village attorney.
The historically cash-poor village has other money troubles. It was overdrawn by $9,200 on a bank account last month and narrowly avoided having to take out a loan to cover that.
“It's like, you think you have good people in there and expect that they'll do their jobs,” Mr. Andrew said. “It blows my mind.”
But he remains optimistic: “We'll work it out.”
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Village, county clash over cash
