VIENNA — A member of the township’s fiscal commission questioned why the fire department’s expenditures weren’t broken out as the commission met for the third time on Monday.

Tisha Turner, representing the state auditor’s office, explained to the commission that the fire department’s salaries counted as $236,000 in year-to-date expenditures because the township was catching up on past due IRS payments.

“In the way UAN (Universal Account Number) works, withholdings are part of the salary,” Turner said, “You’ll notice that salaries have increased for a lot of low funds, and that’s because the township has been actively paying and catching up on that IRS.”

Michael Hillman, who was appointed to the commission by the Ohio Governor’s Office, acknowledged the township is playing catch-up with funds. He also was critical of the lack of cost breakdown to understand where funds were going, noting that the commission said it would be ready in November.

“So, if you have to look at these without that breakout, one would assume that the expenditures far exceed the revenues and that no cuts have been made, and we’re further bleeding,” Hillman said. “But how could a financial committee look at this and say that we’ve even made preliminary cuts without being able to pull out the catch-up?”

If members aren’t going to know if any cuts have been made and the township will continue to bleed without care to the budget, it will make the future rebuilding job harder, he added.

Turner, who said she assumed they were in agreement that the previous year would be broken down in 2025, offered to have one ready for next month’s meeting.

Fiscal Officer Corrine Hardman, whose resignation was announced by Vienna Trustee Phil Pegg at the end of the evening’s meeting, told the commission that there are invoices from last year that still haven’t been paid, but they’ve caught up on IRS payments from 2022 and 2023, with 2024 being current.

Hardman said the fire department is only using enough funds to keep it open, putting funds toward fuel and vehicle repairs.

One resident asked if there was any way to limit the trustees’ ability to act, but Matt Sladek, the committee’s chairman, said they could not, and that their job was to only watch over things.

“The point of this commission is that we are not coming in and telling you guys what to do,” Sladek said. “This is a plan that you guys develop, you pass, we just kind of come through (and) analyze to make sure it’s actually sustainable.”

Hillman said the only thing that would stop the trustees from continuing to exceed revenues is “common sense.”

Hardman said one of the things she learned when she took over as fiscal officer was that the departments didn’t know their budgets, adding she was told “if they knew what their budget was, they’d spend through it the first couple of months.”

Turner confirmed to Hillman that they’ll “definitely” have a 2024 budget because she has to have the township’s recovery plan done by Dec. 26, when the 120 days are officially up.

The commission will meet again Nov. 25.