For Immediate Release:                                                      

November 18, 2020                                                               

Village of Wellsville Released from Fiscal Emergency

Columbus – Village of Wellsville has regained financial stability after four years in a state of fiscal emergency, Auditor of State Keith Faber’s Office announced today.

The Columbiana County Village of 3,541 people was placed in fiscal emergency on November 15, 2016 for the third time in response to deficit balances totaling $93,021 and $28,710 as of December 31, 2015 and May 31, 2016 respectively.

The Village of Wellsville has financially struggled for quite some time, but I hope that the positive path they are on now is sustainable and valued by the community,” said Auditor Faber. “I applaud the leaders and citizens of the Village for making the sacrifices and hard decisions to achieve the necessary balance for a fiscally responsible community.”

To be released from fiscal emergency, the Village had to satisfy the following requirements:

• Adopted and implemented an effective financial accounting and reporting system;
• Corrected or eliminated all of the fiscal emergency conditions; no new conditions have occurred and it appears that based on the five-year forecast, the Village will remain out of fiscal emergency during the forecast period;
• Met the major objectives of the financial recovery plan; and
• Prepared a five-year forecast in accordance with standards issued by the Auditor of State and the opinion expressed by the Auditor of State is “nonadverse.”

The Village took the following steps to terminate the fiscal emergency determination:

• Village residents passed a ½ percent additional income tax in 2017 that began in 2018.  This impacts the general fund by generating approximately $148,000 annually.

• The Village sold capital assets generating approximately $219,000.

• The Village sold an easement generating $60,000.

• A reduction of one employee saves $36,000 annually.

• The sewer fund is charged an annual administrative fee of approximately $32,000 to be paid to the general fund.

• Charged a utility approximately $98,000 for doing business in the Village.

• Village has a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with local business owners to offset expenditures in the general fund. Approximately $47,000 was received in 2018 and approximately $21,000 is to be received annually from 2020-2022.

• Village is working its way through the COVID pandemic and monitoring its finances closely.

Currently, there are 15 entities in fiscal emergency. The Auditor’s Office Local Government Services works with those financially struggling to get their books in order and address problem areas.

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The Auditor of State’s office, one of five independently elected statewide offices in Ohio is responsible for auditing more than 6,000 state and local government agencies. Under the direction of Auditor Keith Faber, the office also provides financial services to local governments, investigates and prevents fraud in public agencies, and promotes transparency in government.