Allen County Commissioners programs director Sofia Clifton shares updates at Tuesday’s meeting.
Jacob Espinosa | The Lima News
LIMA — The Allen County Commissioners shared staff updates at Tuesday morning’s meeting and spoke with assistant prosecutor Kayla Rogers about the decision to pull back agreements for ditch projects.
The commissioners will also be set to clarify agreements about limitations for the Greater Lima Region Amphitheater and Park by Monday, Oct. 21.
“We had to rework the agreement on the amphitheater and make sure everything is correct between the three parties, the Civic Center, the city of Lima and the county, which owns the land the Civic Center sits on,” commissioner Beth Seibert said. “so we have until the deadline of Oct. 21 to do that and commissioner Cory Noonan has worked with the city and the Civic Center for months on that, but the agreement will have a one year term on it to make sure we are able to re-evaluate it and discuss if we need to tweak it in the future.”
The commissioners agreed to pull back from the ditch projects after Rogers informed them they must rescind the resolutions until coming to a new agreement with the county engineer.
“We don’t rescind resolutions because that can be a really big red flag for the state auditor,” Seibert said. “But what she’s saying is the agreements were not entered into yet so this Thursday, the motion to rescind will say we withdrew them. We’re going to have to work through these agreements further and the prosecutor’s office spends a lot of time with us making sure they are correct.”
The commissioners also discussed the 2025 budget and upcoming meetings with department directors.
“Our job is to protect the general fund and not let it be exposed,” Seibert said. “We will meet in the first couple weeks of November with the different agencies, but yesterday our finance director presented us with what we call the budget book. Commissioner Noonan has gone through it already, but each of those agencies has submitted their requests and that’s only the beginning of the process.”
Reach Jacob Espinosa at 567-242-0399.
