Taken From The Weekly Update From City Manager To City Council

Last week I was privileged to be among a group of mediators who underwent training given by statewide budget experts. (I serve as a volunteer mediator for the State of Ohio Commission on Dispute Resolution and Conflict Management.) This training will also be useful as staff prepares our 2011 budgets.

We then broke into teams and mediated budget disputes between cities/counties and their Judges. As you may know, Judges have the ability to require that a certain dollar amount be granted to them in their annual budget; this can cause issues for their funding sources (cities and counties) which do not always have the ability to pay. Fortunately for Middletown and thanks to Judge Wall, we do not get into these disputes. Judge Wall is extremely budget conscious and works with us each year to reduce his expenses and increase court revenue