New program at Workforce Development Center approved; commissioners hear report from recorder’s office

Highland County commissioners David Daniels, Brad Roades and Terry Britton heard reports from leaders of several different county offices — on topics including workforce development, the state of the recorder’s office and permissive sales tax receipts — during their Wednesday, Feb. 21 meeting.

Early in the meeting, commissioners voted 3-0 to enter a memorandum of understanding with Great Oaks Career Campuses for use of the Highland County Workforce Development Center after hearing from Highland County Economic Development Director Julie Bolender.

According to Bolender, this MOU is the start of a “great opportunity” for local high school students to enroll in no-cost phlebotomy and/or medical assisting courses, funded by Great Oaks.

“That course is going to begin here in just a few weeks,” Bolender said. “We anticipate completion of the course by the time the kids graduate from high school, so these students, should they choose to take this course, will be able to graduate with a high school diploma as well as this credential. They can go to work the next day.

“I think the intent of the Workforce Development Center, in the beginning, was to make sure that we were giving our residents and our students the best leg up that we could possibly give them for their career and in their future. This does that. They can get a credential to work in the medical field.”

Bolender added that the students would be then qualified for employment at Highland District Hospital or Adena Greenfield Medical Center, with an opportunity for potential “tuition reimbursement” from those employers if they pursue additional certifications or degrees later.

“It’s a great opportunity for our students, and it's a great partnership with Great Oaks,” Bolender said. “It’s at no cost to the students and no cost to the county.”

Roades asked how students can enroll, and Bolender said they could work with the guidance counselor at their school.

“The center is located in Greenfield, and I know [McClain High School work program coordinator] Mark Bihl has a list of students that are ready to sign up,” Bolender said. “We are contacting the other schools today.”

Also on Wednesday, Highland County Recorder Chad McConnaughey shared his annual “state of the recorder’s address,” with 2023 totals continuing a downward trend, as also seen in 2022.

As previously reported, a record 7,015 documents were recorded by McConnaughey’s office in 2021, which went down to 6,908 in 2022. The number has since gone down another 21 percent, with 5,459 documents recorded last calendar year, McConnaughey said Wednesday.

“Interest rates have slowed down real estate, and that's our number-one fee producer, mainly the buying and selling of land and refinancing of mortgages,” McConnaughey said.

The documents recorded in the county last year included 1,608 deeds, 1,054 releases of mortgages, 1,048 mortgages, 331 transfer on death affidavits, 248 affidavits and 164 easements, according to McConnaughey. 

The reduced number of documents also led to a 25-percent decrease in the total amount collected in 2023, with $336,057.40 coming into the recorder’s office (a decrease of $111,683.60 compared to 2022). 

“Half of that goes to the Ohio Housing Trust Fund, so we don't even touch that,” McConnaughey said. “Half of every document fee does not go to the county, it goes to the state, so we'd like to make sure people are aware of that. 

“What we did keep here in the general fund, I always kind of watch that. I like to make sure it at least covers my budget, and so it did. I always try to watch our budget fairly closely, and we even recycled paper. We do everything we can to keep our budget as tight as we can.”

Also in 2023, McConnaughey said there were a few changes made in his office, with chief deputy Holly Schutte leaving for another opportunity. Former deputy Emily Jackson was promoted to chief deputy, and Jo Sanborn has been hired to fill the deputy role. 

“They’re doing great,” McConnaughey said. 

McConnaughey said that he and his staff are continuing to work on back-indexing property information on 97 books from the 1980s, as part of a project approved in 2020, as time permits.

As previously reported, commissioners voted in August 2020 to approve McConnaughey’s proposal in the amount of $154,895.81 for a vendor to scan, digitize and index county records back to 1980 and have them available online and to fund the project through the federal CARES Act monies.

“It's a pretty big task, to be honest, but it does give them something to do that helps hone their skills, and mine as well, on current documents because the more and more we do indexing, the better we get at it,” McConnaughey said. 

He added that they expect to complete the project in 2024.

Also of note, McConnaughey said that e-recording accounted for half of the total amount of funds collected by his office in 2023.

“Documents that are being sent to us via the internet to be recorded is becoming half of our workload,” McConnaughey said. “When we started, it was about 15 to 18 percent, and every year that we've had e-recording, it continues to climb.” 

McConnaughey said he is also assisting in “a couple of Century Farm searches right now” with area landowners. Daniels thanked him for those efforts.

“I’ve noticed that we've got a lot more Century Farms, Sesquicentennial Farms and Bicentennial Farms signs going around the county because you're doing that work, so congratulations,” Daniels said.

McConnaughey replied that “doing old research is fun” and “what I enjoy the most about my job, and I get to do it the least.

“My staff works hard on that,” he said. “We enjoy that project.”

After hearing McConnaughey’s report, Britton asked if his office’s “funding source is still holding up” to pay his vendor fees. McConnaughey said that thus far, the $5 equipment fee they are assessing is covering those expenses. 

Commissioners thanked the recorder for his annual update.

In other discussion:

• Highland County Auditor Alex Butler briefly updated commissioners on the county’s permissive sales tax receipts, which he said are continuing to show an increase over 2023. 

According to Butler, the county collected $827,636.61 in February 2024, which is a two-percent increase over February 2023. That puts the county at over $1.6 million on the year, after January’s $806,947.03 total was a nine-percent increase from 2023 figures.

“Year to date, we are at five-percent more than we received last year,” Butler said.

• Although not mentioned during the meeting, commissioners did receive a letter recently from Highland County Prosecutor Anneka Collins regarding the land bank, as the email was listed under the correspondence portion of the agenda.

As previously reported, in September 2023, it was suggested by a consultant that the Highland County Land Reutilization Corporation (land bank) board could potentially work with the Highland County Health Department to get a letter ordering blight cleanup for properties in Madison Township. 

The land bank board’s attorney, Todd Book, said in November and again in January that the Health Department asked the land bank “to bring a little bit more to the table when it comes to their authority to do this” before agreeing. 

The email from Collins, which was dated Jan. 25 and listed on the Feb. 21 commission agenda, was written to commissioners, Book and Land Bank Coordinator Jason Johansen, with Collins telling the group, “The Health Department cannot just declare a place a ‘nuisance’ and then tell the Land Bank to go clean it up.”

Collins cited two provisions of the Ohio Revised Code regarding health department authority, including one where “a public nuisance complaint would have to be filed in Court and the Court declares it a nuisance,” after which “a receivership then is appointed and the property cleaned.” The other instance was one granting health department authority “to enter and abate a nuisance that has been declared ‘dangerous to life and health.’

“A blighted house is not that,” Collins wrote. “And this is only after notice is given to the landowner and the landowner is given the opportunity to abate the nuisance.”

Collins added that she “cannot find a single code that allows the Board of Health to declare something a nuisance, abate it or allow the Land Bank to abate it, without notice to the landowners.

“If you believe such a law exists, will you please forward that to me,” Collins wrote. “If there is no law that says that, please correct yourselves at the next Land Bank meeting.”

During the February meeting, Book said that the land bank would be “looking for avenues probably outside of the Health Department at this point” to clean up the parcels in Madison Township.

“It looks like maybe we need to go a different route on that,” Book said Feb. 15. “We wanted to do this to make sure that we cross all the t's and dot all the i's as it relates to that.” 

• Later in the morning, commissioners were scheduled to hold work sessions with county records manager Julie Wallingford and with Cierra Moore of the maintenance department.  

• Commissioners issued a proclamation in honor of National FFA Week in Highland County, which is being observed Feb. 17-24. Read more at: https://highlandcountypress.com/news/highland-county-commissioners-loca….

• Local bell enthusiast and C.S. Bell historian Tim Koehl met with commissioners to discuss two bell-related topics related to the Highland County Courthouse. For more, see: https://highlandcountypress.com/news/old-and-new-bells-highland-county-…

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