By Krystal Smalley
ksmalley@wbcowqel.com
The Westmoor Sewer Project may have been completed four years ago, but the headaches that came with the job haven’t abated.
The Crawford County commissioners met with county auditor Joan Wolfe and engineer Lyn Makeever Thursday to discuss the matter of a payment made by a Polk Township resident to tap in to the Westmoor system. Though the $2,500 fee ended up in the county’s coffers as it should, Wolfe felt the way it got there was a cause for concern.
According to the resolutions recently provided to Wolfe’s department, 250 tap-ins were allowed for the Westmoor Sanitary Sewer Project. Of that number, 243 residents from Polk Township were using the Westmoor sewer system with another three tapped in within the city limits. Any additional homeowners outside the city limits wishing to tap in to the system needed to send the fee to the City of Galion, which would then be sent to the county.
That was not exactly how the most recent payment ended up in the county’s Maintenance Fund. According to Commissioner Doug Weisenauer, the homeowner paid the fee directly to the county. That raised a red flag in the Financial Services office, as no paperwork was on file for that type of payment.
“I don’t think any of your agreements here that you have says you get the fee directly,” Wolfe told commissioners Weisenauer and Jenny Vermillion. Wolfe agreed that the county would get the fee, as per the agreement, but that it needed to go through Galion first before it came to the county. She also noted that the agreement differed slightly from the two resolutions on file, which in turn were also somewhat different from each other.
Weisenauer argued that, because the home was outside the city limits, the fee would need to come to the county. He pointed out that the legislation did not say that they were not allowed to accept the payment, either.
“I don’t disagree it’s our money, but we shouldn’t have gotten it the way we got it,” Wolfe said. “I question even where you paid it in to.”
“The only reason I took it was because it was outside the city limits of Galion; it was in Polk Township,” Weisenauer responded. “This new house is not part of the agreement we have with Galion. It’s in Polk Township and USDA has allowed us to go ahead and tap in seven additional homes out of Polk Township.”
“There’s no distinction that I’ve read,” Wolfe said about how fees were handled if a home was within city limits or in Polk Township. “It still didn’t matter where it was. It still said the city was going to take the tap-in fee and then forward it to us.”
Robin Sheets, deputy county auditor and head of Financial Services, added that her department never received documents specifying that the county gets Westmoor fees in the Maintenance Fund. She said that the department would always question fees that did not correspond to the typical payments they get for that fund, which is why the matter was raised with the commissioners.
It was the intent to have Galion collect the fees and perform the inspections on the system, Makeever stated, turning the total operational management of the facilities over to the city.
When Weisenauer expressed slight disbelief to having the county refund the $2,500 to Galion only to accept the payment once again in order to have a proper paper trail, Wolfe took a hard stance.
“Is it right the way it is, Doug?” Wolfe asked.
“I think the money is in the right account where it is,” Weisenauer replied.
“Did you get it the right way?” countered Wolfe.
“Apparently, I’m not sure we got it the right way,” he admitted.
“It just seems to me in reading all of the agreements and the resolutions that you can’t bypass the city – and that’s what we did even though it’s (the home) in the county,” Wolfe said. “We bypassed the City of Galion and the City of Galion is who is administering.”
Wolfe suggested not only discussing the matter with county prosecutor Matt Crall, but also touching base with Galion officials to get the resolutions in line.
Weisenauer said the agreements were supposed to be discussed and renegotiated at least once every three years, though that deadline was several years past due.