Part 4 – Self-Inflicted Eviction – Who’s Minding The Boards?

Is Anyone actually watching or being held accountable for your Levy Tax Dollars.

Therefore every time you vote in favor of a Levy without demanding accountability, you are contributing to not only your – but others Self-Inflicted Eviction.

The purpose of this post is that simple deeper dive into the ‘Unaffordability” of Levies. It has taken a long time to bring this information to you since the details of it had to be more fully investigated and then written in more of a ‘White Paper’ format. Consider how long the list of the taxing authorities are as noted in “Part 3 of Self-imposed Eviction: Confusion – Good Intentions By Deception and Legislation”. The challenge for this writer has been to drill down on the Ohio Revised Code, the Ohio Administrative Code and the various bureaucratic entities rules, grants, strategies and policies.

Gulp! Where’s the Tylenol for the headache?

It is abundantly clear that many of the “unelected” Boards and bureaucrats of some nineteen taxing Subdivisions in Ohio have “ZERO Accountability to the Citizens of the Counties. Why? Because no one is paying attention to them.

The point is – that I can take you down a path of further confusion. That is exactly what happens as one attempts to traverse all that is intended to be good for the people within the State – especially those with some sort of need. In this Part 4 of the journey, we need to look at two very important considerations as to who is ‘Accountable’ regarding your Property Tax Dollars collected for the various ‘taxing Subdivisions’ in Levies .

Elected Vs. Appointed

I’m sure you read Part 3 so that you can you can see the listing of all the various ‘taxing Subdivisions’ authorized by the State Constitution or by legislative action. As we read the list on Page 2 of Part 3 we can count about twenty-two defined entities that ‘shall’ or ‘can’ increase your Property Taxes. It is important to understand that this list not only defines the entity that can tax you but also who should be looked to for accountability.

What is fact – is that only about ‘five’ of those ‘taxing Subdivisions’ elect, hopefully, responsible persons. Those elected to the various offices in a ‘taxing Subdivisions’ are accountable to those who elected them. Take a deep breath and think that through…. (Pause and reflect on that) …. Those you elect are accountable to you for all aspects of what the ‘taxing Subdivision’ does and how it spends YOUR Property Tax money.

Do you know: Which are the four or five “taxing Subdivisions” have elected seats out of our list of twenty-two?

They are shown at your County’s Elections Board web site. As of this writing the list for the ELECTED has not been updated on the Geauga County Elections Board web site. With this posted list available for ‘Local Authorities’, it is clear that counties, municipal corporations, townships and boards of education all have elected representation as the responsible, fiduciary agents who are accountable to the electors (that being you). Now the elected officials of these primary entities can establish or according to State law “Shalli” establish certain Boards and Districts. This is where the possibility of nineteen other Districts and Boards come from.

****What is critical to note is that those who serve on the Boards or are Trustees for these ‘taxing Subdivision’ Districts are – NOT elected.

They are APPOINTED!

Now I’m trying to keep this simple. The State mandates that these “Unelected” Boards “Shall” hire executive directors and staff to carry out the functions of the Boards. Thus, a bureaucracy is created. Often with this bureaucracy as special class of citizen is also created in that these executive directors receive all, that is 100%, of their benefits paid for by you – in your Property Taxes.

Who Does This To the County Citizens?

In all cases, the Boards are made up of Citizens that have some common association to the type of Board that is mandated. In all cases a lesser number of a Boards members are appointed by the State agency that the ‘taxing Subdivision’ is associated to. The majority of Board members are suppose to be appointed by the County Commissioners. In the majority of cases the State sets the criteria for who the Boards ‘Shall’ hire as an executive Director.

With all respect to those that are appointed to the various Boards of the ‘taxing Subdivisions’, They are not often educated in business practices or how a Board should function. The Board members are Citizens wanting to do the correct actions for the benefit of the Boards legal requirements and we should assume – the correct actions for the County they are a part of.

No One Is Minding The Store!

Bringing back to the opening statement: IS anyone actually watching or being held accountable for your Levy Tax Dollars? The facts are that if you as a Citizen go to a public Board meeting of the “Unelected” Boards, you most likely will observe that they are confined to themselves. This is especially true if and when they discuss their financial responsibilities. Sadly they live in ‘echo chambers’ and rarely if ever consider what or how their decisions will affect the entire County.

Therefore when they seek Levy dollars from you – they never take into consideration the total cost of all the other levies you are paying for when they want to keep or add a tax increase to you!

In the final analysis for now, consider this: That once a Board is put in motion, those that appoint the members of the various ‘taxing Subdivision’ Boards never pay attention to what they are really doing. The State agencies claim ‘No Oversight’ capability and most often the County Commissioners have other things that are more interesting.

What that means is that these Boards for the various ‘taxing Subdivisions’ are in fact ‘self-policing’.

I leave you with this to ponder as you hear about Levies in future elections:

Who’s minding the hen house when the foxes are the managers at the door?

Just an FYI – This is an issue not only in Ohio but a great challenge in every State in the Nation.

Foot Notes:

“Shall” means that by law you have NO Choice in doing or not doing what is defined in the body of the law or regulation.

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