Ripley Village Council discusses the 2024 Police Department budget with the Ripley Police Chief Corey Herren at the Jan. 23 meeting with the public in attendance.
RIPLEY, Ohio – The Ripley Village Council is continuing to discuss its 2024 budget which includes proposed cuts to the Police Department budget.
In 2023, the budget for the RPD was around $600,000 to conduct everything that was needed for the year and the proposed budget for this year is possibly going to be cut in half to around $300,000.
During the most recent village council meeting on Jan. 23 village officials along with the public and the RPD continued further discussion about the 2024 RPD budget outlook.
Ripley Police Chief Corey Herren along with the assistant chief presented three different scenarios that listed how the working hours would look under the proposed budget for the village council to review.
“So again I gave you guys three options uh the first option is the first page which is only with one full-time police officer, the second page would be for two full-time officers and then the third page will be for three full-time officers. That is the best number I can come up with I cannot go any cheaper than that” Assistant Chief stated.
With the proposed budget RPD would no longer be able to remain a 24-hour police department as it stands as one of the only remaining 24-hour police departments along the river.
Working hours would move to around 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. with the options that RPD gave the council which could leave Ripley with no patrol from around two a.m. until seven a.m.
Herren explained to the council during the Jan. 23 meeting that the options RPD provided are the best it can do given what the proposed budget amount is.
Ripley’s 2024 budget is continuing to be discussed and arranged before being displayed at the next council meeting on Feb. 13.
Ripley Village Administrator Wayne Gates explained that the process of putting a budget together is a two-step process in which different topics have to be considered and calculated.
“The first step is to look at expenditures last year a lot of the budget that we have within the village we have separate funds for the sewer department, the water department, the electric department, the general fund um and then each of those funds are broken down internally with what we call wide items” Gates stated.
Gates further stated, “We are going to have x amount of dollars on wholesale electricity, x amount of dollars on vehicle equipment, x amount of dollars on office supplies so that is how we try to keep our internal accounting straight so we know how much we’ve spent on any particular item.”
In the second step of the budget formulating process Gates explained how it pertains to anticipated revenue where everything that had a cost would be added up to calculate the previous year’s spending amount for the village and an anticipated amount would then be able to be calculated for the current year.
“The way the state lets us do that is you have to turn in a temporary budget that can go all the way to the thirty-first of March before the end of the calendar year so normally that is done in December” Gates stated.
A final budget has to be submitted and approved before the March 31 deadline and once everything is finalized there cannot be any overspending on the approved budget amounts.
If there are any times once the budget is approved and finalized that any department goes in the negative before the end of the year a process of transferring money from another fund can be started but has to go through approval to take place.
Through all of these steps of how the yearly budget is formulated the Ripley Village has one particular budget that residents are voicing in their own opinions about which is the RPD budget.
According to Gates, the appropriated amount of funds for the RPD was around $564,850 in 2023 about half more than what is being proposed for 2024.
In previous years the amount of funds for the RPD has been around $346,000 to $264,000 according to Gates.
“The Village cannot sustain that because our entire anticipated revenue for our general fund which is where the Police Department is funded is about $400,000 and we spent $160,000 out of the general funds last year on things that were obligations unrelated to the Police Department which leaves $240,000.
In the 2024 proposed budget Gates explained that where the discussions are as of right now the RPD would end up receiving around 61 percent of that budget.
Options like raising income tax are not available, according to Gates, because the rates are already as high as they can be following state laws.
“All we can do is have a levy on the property within the village itself and if we were to run a police levy we would have to run a levy of approximately ten mills because a mill in the village at this point is about $26,000 and to raise $200,000 would have to be nine mills which is a significant increase in property tax so if it is clear that the public is willing to do that than a conversation about 2025 could be had” Gates stated.
Moving towards the March 31 deadline for the finalized budget there are four village council meetings left to fully finalize everything.
The main underlying question that remains for the 2024 RPD budget is how the staffing is going to move forward if the proposed budget gets finalized.
Gates explained that the options given to the council from the RPD will be analyzed by the Mayor to decide which option will be the best fit for the village and the RPD.
“My hope is that everyone can work together to understand the constraints that the village is under from a revenue point of view and realize that we are trying to do the best we can with what we have we can’t create money where it doesn’t exist so our only choice is to cut expenses” Gates stated.
Once the 2024 budget is finalized the council will provide the RPD the appropriated amount that it has and the RPD will move forward itself with how those funds are allocated within the department.
