Eye-on-Ravenna Blog

Status of Ravenna’s Health Care Benefits and the City’s Budget.

eyeonravenna — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 20:11:22 +0000

In response to Mr Dudek’s letter to the editor on January 19^th, I would like to offer the status of The City of Ravenna’s Health Care Benefits and the City’s budget.

Healthcare is one of the largest expenses for the City and has been targeted for change throughout the 2010, 2011 budget process. We began the 2010 year with a budget deficit of $1,838,774.00 and had established significant cost reduction goals for changes to the overall operation of the City including healthcare.

Two specific areas that were targeted in the health care area were, 1) job elimination through attrition and/or consolidation thus reducing the number of covered employees in the City’s healthcare plan and 2) the institution of spousal language for all non-union employees (requiring all non-union members to ensure their spouses were covered under their employer’s plan first). Unfortunately, we were still operating under active Union contracts so could not impose this change on our Union employees.

With the knowledge that Union contracts would expire on December 31, 2010, we fully intended to make spousal language, employee contribution and increased out-of-pocket maximums a major priority in our negotiations with the unions. Unfortunately, our hands were tied with the passage of the Healthcare Reform Act in March of 2010. As a self insured plan, we define our coverage and the plan is considered “grandfathered” under the new law. This grandfathered status provides an exemption from a host of additionally required preventative service coverages under the Healthcare Reform Act. We consulted our Insurance Broker and have been advised that these additionally required coverages continue to be expanded. We are extremely concerned that any funds we may save thru the collection of an employee contribution could be depleted through the processing of claims for the additional mandatory required coverages. In addition, we are currently in the process of accepting dependent enrollees onto our plan as dictated by Healthcare Reform Act. To date we have processed the addition of 10 dependents to our plan which previously were not qualified, adding additional exposure to our plan.

Based on the current health care legislation and the union contracts, we have decided to hold off on any changes to our health care plan at this point. We will continue to intensely study our health care expenditures and ways to reduce the expense for the City.

Beyond the healthcare issue we have made significant progress on the City’s budget in controlling expenses and cutting costs. The city opened the year with an annual operating loss of $1,838,774.00. Intensive changes were made to the City’s operational structure to control expenses and cut costs without affecting city services. We ended the year with an operating loss of $520,363.00. Although a loss, we are headed and moving in the right direction.

I would again thank you for your interest and encourage yourself and all citizens to attend City Council meetings or contact your Council representative to offer your valued input.

City Clean-Up

eyeonravenna — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 23:04:54 +0000

Today I had an initial meeting with the Ravenna Lion’s Club about the annual City Cleanup. This is the day that the City and the Ravenna Lion’s Club organize a city wide walking pickup of litter around the city by volunteers. Last year we had a great turnout and were able to make a significant dent in picking up some of the trash that lined the streets. I would encourage everyone to come out and join us this year and help bring Ravenna back one step at a time.

Mark your calendars, May 1. More information to come

Get Out & Vote !

eyeonravenna — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:24:58 +0000

The election is less than six days from now and have you decided on the candidates and issues? I would encourage you if you haven’t already done so to research the candidates and issues. Be prepared when you walk into your voting location. One of the best resources that I have found is the League of Women Voters of Kent voters’ guide. The information they provide is a nonpartisan look at the issues and candidates. The League of Women Voters encourages the informed and active participation of citizens in government. We need to take advantage of this responsibility and vote for the most qualified candidates to ensure the proper management of our government. We should not vote based on emotion or political affiliation. Voting decisions should be based on facts, experience, education, qualifications and what they bring to the position for the betterment of the public.

This is the link to the League of Women Voters “Voters’ Guide”

http://kent.oh.lwvnet.org/votersguide.html

Economic Development Cost

eyeonravenna — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 02:42:17 +0000

A comment came to my attention today regarding the issue of why the city is considering paying for an economic development director or economic development firm. I certainly understand the concern about paying for economic development help within the city with such a large diverse workforce. Some individuals within the city may be capable of taking on some of the responsibility for economic development to offset hiring an individual or firm. My concern with utilizing current city employees is that we need to have one key individual such as an economic development director that would take on this responsibility and coordinate the efforts. The sole mission of the economic development director would be to promote and retain business within the City. I would expect an economic development director to specialize in this area and call upon others within the city to assist. The city needs a focused, trained professional to take charge of selling the city.
Ravenna is at the point that if we do not take some action quickly we will continue to slip back to the point of staggering tax losses. In turn this will continue to erode at city services and the ability of the city to capture any new business.

The city is in need of major changes to the overall operating structure. We are currently overburdened in areas with overstaffing and inefficient departmental structures. We need to reevaluate what services we offer to our residents and the overall direction and long term plan of what we want Ravenna to be. Economic development and how that is structured is only one small aspect of how Ravenna needs to change.

Monday July 6th

eyeonravenna — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:40:22 +0000

On Monday July 6^th City council is going to discuss and potentially pass the 2010 Tax Budget. The discussion will surround a $106,000 deficit and what cuts and changes to the 2010 budget will need to be made to balance the numbers. The items below are targeted for discussion:

Revenue Changes:		Increased (Decreased)	Total

Grand Jury Rental		($600)
Web Check Fees		$9,800	$9,200

Expenditure Reductions:

Dept	Line Reduced	Amount Reduced

Admin	Workers Comp Claims	$15,000
Police	Training & Edu	$5,000
EMS/Fire	Building Repairs	$5,000
Tree Commission	Removals	$30,000
	Emerg Trimming	$10,000
	Arborist	$21,000
Building	Vehicle Maint	$9,000
Economic Development	Promotional Advert.	$2,500
Info Systems	Training & Ed	$2,500	$100,000

Expenditure Additions:

Civil Service	Supplies (Exams)	($2,000)	($2,000)

PROJECTED GENERAL FUND SURPLUS AT DECEMBER 31, 2010:			$1,115

These numbers are estimates and will be discussed at the Monday meeting. Keep in mind this budget and the numbers are only temporary and will need to be modified as the year progresses. These are all estimates. The budget commission meets again on July 22, 2009 at 6:30.

2010 Budget issues Imminent

eyeonravenna — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:19:42 +0000

As council moves into the budget process for the 2010 fiscal year we are starting to see signs of significant budget issues in 2010 and beyond. City Council, the Mayor and Finance Directors started meeting to determine the best course of action for the 2010 budget. The City has had significant interest income losses as well as a down turn in City income tax. This loss of revenue with the ongoing increases in materials, labor and health care are creating a potentially dangerous situation.

Within the next few weeks I will post some of the budget numbers and keep this sit up to date on the meetings and discussions related to the 2010 budget.

Ravenna Summer Fest

eyeonravenna — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:36:52 +0000

Don’t forget The Ravenna Summer Fest this coming weekend, downtown Ravenna. The Ravenna Merchant Association is sponsoring this downtown activity that starts on Saturday June 13 from 10-4. The day will include sidewalk sales from downtown retailers as well as others that would like to set up a table for crafts and other items. Some of the other activities will include a car show, petting zoo, children’s activities and numerous food vendors. For more information please call 33-298-1233. Please come and explore the downtown area.

Ravenna Fire Department Statistic for April 2009

eyeonravenna — Thu, 21 May 2009 15:08:44 +0000

I find it very interesting that the majority of the calls that the Ravenna Fire Department responds to are EMS related. Over the years as fire prevention has increased the average number of true fire calls has decreased. The Ravenna department is still very busy responding by ambulance to EMS type situations. For the month of April of 2009 the Ravenna department responded to 165 EMS calls which equated to 83% of the incident counts for April. Fire calls made up 10% with the remaining 7% filled by False Alarm calls. The Fire Department breaks the calls down by percentage for each ward in the City.

Ward 1 47.7%

Ward 2 23.1%

Ward 3 17.0%

Ward 4 6.5%

Charlestown & Mutual Aid 5.5%

With those EMS runs the City fueled up the two Horton Ambulance units with over 123 gallons of fuel.

Thought you would like to know.

Economic Development

eyeonravenna — Wed, 13 May 2009 14:18:29 +0000

Progressive economic development is the lifeblood of a municipality. Without an overall direction and focused effort in this area Ravenna is relying on individuals’ connections and a bit of luck. For Ravenna to make money from business and grow the overall income tax base, we will need to spend money to recruit and retain them. Recruitment and retention are very long term goals with substantial payoffs if done properly. Ravenna is in an economic competition with other surrounding communities. These communities have economic development departments with established incentives and long term plans and goals. Ravenna needs to take the leap and create an economic development department and set clear direction and expectations for its staff with milestones along the way. The longer we wait the further behind economically Ravenna becomes.

Fantastic Planning ODOT

eyeonravenna — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:07:46 +0000

I was utterly astonished to travel home Tuesday down Route 44 South from the Ohio Turnpike in turnpike into Ravenna to see construction signs being posted. Apparently ODOT decided to resurface Route 44 between Ravenna and Shalersville at the exact same time that State Route 14 between Ravenna and Streetsboro is closed. I can understand the need to resurface Route 44, but who in their right mind would schedule the work to be done at the same time as the Route 14 closure? ODOT posted Route 44 as the detour for Route 14 which increased the traffic load considerably between Ravenna and Shalersville. So today on my way to the Ohio Turnpike I sat, along with the additional traffic from Route 14 for over 10 minutes while the construction continued. We were all late for work. Excellent planning!