Press release from the Butler County Auditor’s Office:
The Butler County Auditor’s Office will be selling 2009 Dog Tags beginning Dec. 1 through Jan. 31 for $14 on the fourth floor of the county Administration Building, 130 High Street. After Jan. 31 a late fee kicks in and the tag increases to $28.
It is the law in Ohio that ALL dogs three months of age and older be licensed through the auditor’s office. When an animal control officer finds a licensed dog running loose they can look up the information and make sure the dog is returned safely home. If a dog is found without a current license the animal may be impounded.
This year, for the first time, tags can also be purchased Online through our office Web site. The site accepts American Express, Discover, MasterCard and Visa. There are also 52 agents across Butler County who sell official county dog tags.
A complete list of agents and their locations can be found at the auditor’s Web site, www.butlercountyauditor.org.
The Auditor’s Office has mailed renewal forms to more than 27,000 county residents who registered approximately 36,000 dogs in 2008. The form includes information on how to renew or cancel a tag in addition to adding a new dog.
I know nothing about this product, but I thought I’d pass along this e-mail I just received. Please let me know if you’ve used this or something similar to it in the past:
Hi Josh,
My company ReduceHomeTaxes.com has several products that may interest you. Our Gold Package for $49.99 will audit a property to determine if an assessment value reduction should be pursued or is fairly assessed. Our Platinum Package will do all the work in preparing an assessment complaint for $389.00. If the assessment reduction request is not granted or we determine the property is fairly assessed we refund 100% of the purchase price. The burden of proof is up to the homeowner and our services are a true value. I would look forward to talking with you about property assessments you can contact me anytime on my direct line at (number redacted). It’s a great story that is rarely told.
Butler County has submitted a plan to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to use a $4.2 million federal grant to combat neighborhood blight and foreclosure.
Central to the county’s plan is an untested initiative to keep people in their homes by buying foreclosed homes from banks and helping homeowners refinance them.
County commissioners campaigned for this to be part of the plan and HUD agreed, though it’s not what the grant was intended for, said county Development and Planning Director Michael Juengling.
Do you think this effort will work? Is there anything else that needs to be done?
Butler County residents will get the ear of their U.S. senator Tuesday, Dec. 2, when representatives from Sen. George Voinovich’s office visit for a “connecting with communities” session.
The meeting will be 1:30 p.m. Tuesday on the 6th floor of the Government Services Center, 315 High Street, Hamilton. No appointments are necessary.
District representatives will assemble comments and concerns and take them directly back to the Ohio senator, according to a statement from Voinovich’s office.
What message would you relay to Voinovich, if you had a chance?
What do you think about that? Does it surprise you there were only two incidents, despite all the hype about voter fraud before the election?
Story two:
At the final count, no victors became losers in any local races after the Butler County Board of Elections added provisional ballots into the total votes in the Nov 4 election.
The 7,821 provisional ballots did boost this year’s voter turnout above the 2004 total, but far below the 80 percent turnout some local officials predicted.
There were 174,058 votes cast in this year’s presidential election, up from 168,976 in 2004.
But after a surge in new voter registration — bringing the total from 238,022 in 2004 to 260,694 this year — the percentage turnout was only 67.2 percent this year. Turnout was 71 percent in 2004.
The e-mail below went to all Butler County Children Services employees from agency director Michael Fox. It’s about Fox’s effort to cut the agency’s budget by 12 percent.
Like any conversation with or e-mail from Fox, it’s very long. So I’ll put my questions at the top:
What do you think of Fox’s performance since stepping down from the county commission dais and taking the helm of Children Services? What do you think of his drastic budget cuts? Prudent? Over-reaching?
Here’s the e-mail:
Good news!
Yesterday you received an email from Linda Peters giving you an update on the latest monthly report on our placement costs. I want to thank those of you who have taken on the task of helping to reduce the cost of placements. :
Our placement costs have once again gone down. In case you did not see Linda’s email here it is. She wrote:
“Attached please find the per diem analysis as of 11-13-08. As you will see, we have 320 children in custody and decreased our per diem costs from $22,293.74 to $21,513.75, from October to November - 3.50% reduction.
In total, from our baseline in August, 2008, children in custody dropped from 369 to 320! A drop of 13% (49) in the number of placements. Per diems have decreased from $25,484.78 to the $21,513.75 - or a reduction of 15.58%.
This truly represents a reduction in the number of children in custody AND per diems—the cost of care.”
This is good news for all of us. We are only about 4.5% away from reaching our goal of at least a 20% reduction in placement costs. There is no question that this goal is within reach and can be achieved.
What does this mean to you and other employees and how does this affect our over all budget circumstance and fit into our 2009 budget? Here’s how.
There are six issues that are driving the circumstances of our budget at the moment. They are:
Butler County Auditor Roger Reynolds will officially be sworn in for the remainder of this term as Auditor on Thursday, December 4th.
Retired Common Pleas Judge John Moser will administer the oath to Reynolds at a ceremony at Symmes Tavern on the Green, 500 Wessel Drive in Fairfield at 5:30pm on December 4th.
After the oath of office, a celebration/fundraiser to help pay off campaign debt will be held at the Green. There is no set cost; the suggested donation is $50.00
For more information, please call Butler County Republican Headquarters at (513) 893-5292.
The final vote
I stopped by the Board of Elections today to pick up the final vote totals in the election after more than 7,000 provisional ballots were added in. In this race, Democrat Jack Zettler’s margin of loss went down a teeny bit. The final vote:
Josh Sweigart reports about Butler County, Ohio, politics, county government, countywide issues and Butler County people just like you for Cox Ohio Publishing (including the Hamilton JournalNews, Middletown Journal and several weekly papers in Butler County). He wants your suggestions and questions for more news stories. Leave a comment for him here or e-mail Josh at jsweigart@coxohio.com.
Josh Sweigart
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