Columbus – Auditor Yost today released the Village of Leipsic (Putnam County) from fiscal emergency, a status it held for more than seven years.

“Leipsic has spent almost a decade navigating the obstacles of an economic downslide,” Auditor Yost said. “The entire community should take pride in what it has accomplished during these challenging years.”

The village of 2,093 people was placed in fiscal emergency on Sept. 16, 2010, after auditors identified deficit balances in five funds and after the village defaulted on three loans.

Since then, the village has lowered expenses by about $137,000 annually by renegotiating loan terms with the Ohio Water Development Authority, extending the repayment period by 10 years. The village also has carefully regulated pay increases, freezing salaries during 2011 and limiting pay raises to 1.5 percent in 2012 and 2013, and 2 percent in 2014.

Revenue for the village has increased by hundreds of thousands of dollars since 2012 as a result of several rate hikes for water and sewer services. 

The village also had to satisfy the following requirements to be released from fiscal emergency:

1. Adopted and implemented an effective financial accounting and reporting system;
2. Corrected or eliminated all of the fiscal emergency conditions; no new conditions have occurred, and it appears that, based on the five-year forecast, the village will remain out of fiscal emergency during the forecast period,
3. Met the major objectives of the financial recovery plan; and
4. Prepared a five-year forecast in accordance with standards issued by the Auditor of State, and the opinion expressed by the Auditor of State is “nonadverse.”

A full copy of this fiscal emergency termination is available online.

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The Auditor of State’s office, one of five independently elected statewide offices in Ohio, is responsible for auditing more than 5,900 state and local government agencies.  Under the direction of Auditor Dave Yost, the office also provides financial services to local governments, investigates and prevents fraud in public agencies and promotes transparency in government.

Contact:
Beth Gianforcaro
Press Secretary
614-644-1111