Written by On December 3, 2025, senior staff, Auditor Miranda Meginness, Deputy Auditor Marden Watts, and City Council Finance Chair Twila Laing (R-4th Ward) met with Cindy and Amy from the Auditor of State’s office. The following is a summary of that meeting and the steps identified to move forward toward our goal of fixing the issues that have placed us in fiscal caution. Obviously, the number one thing they have told us since we started talking with them is that we must cut expenses and explore possibilities for increasing revenues.
Our first step in cutting expenses has been the submission of a balanced 2026 budget. We discussed this at length with them and were advised that the next step in the process would be to pass this as a temporary operating budget for the first quarter of 2026, finalizing the rest of the year’s budget by April 1, 2026. It was discussed that this step would allow us more time to see final 2025 numbers and be better able to adjust if needed prior to setting our full year’s budget for 2026. If changes have to be made, they can be made prior to that. We discussed our nearly $9 million in deficit fund balances, and we were advised that we need to show a plan to address these deficits and begin to pay them down over time.
It is basically a payment plan. As long as our recovery plan addresses these funds and shows that we will be paying them down over time—and not increasing those deficits—this would be deemed acceptable by the State. Prior to January 23, 2026, we must submit a proposed improvement plan to fix the financial situations that caused us to be deemed in fiscal caution. This plan must be approved by the State prior to implementation. The State will then supervise our efforts in following the approved plan and will determine if we are making the necessary changes and fixing those issues identified in the letter of fiscal caution.
There was a lengthy discussion about our current financial software system, New World, and the fact that it will never work as intended for state purposes. Cindy has been around since the inception of New World—the lady from the State has been around since New World was conceived here in the City of Marion—and believes that this system, as well as several other cities using the same system, continues to have ongoing issues. If we stay with New World, our financials will never be accurate. She has suggested that we talk with a few other companies that are in use throughout the state of Ohio and are based in Ohio, so they are very knowledgeable about what is needed for state accounting purposes. We happen to know that the County of Marion currently uses Software Solutions, a company they have used for several years. I have set up an introductory meeting with Software Solutions on December 16, 2025, just to gather information and try to wrap our minds around what it would cost if we went to a new system.
We discussed the importance of the administration, the Auditor, and Council all working together on the same page to follow and implement our plan of action. The State will not care who the roadblock is if there is one; they will just be concerned with the fact that we are not following our plan. If we are not following our plan, they could force us into one of the other categories, such as fiscal watch or fiscal emergency. I brought handouts for everybody tonight—I think I’ve passed them out before—explaining exactly what each category is and what the ramifications are.
During our conversation with Cindy, she said that nobody wants us to even go to the next stage (fiscal watch). As long as we get a plan in place that we can all agree upon, and the State agrees to that plan, and we stick to it, we should be fine. The hope is to get out of fiscal caution and get our bond rating back, hopefully within a couple of years. It’s our hope tonight to be able to pass Ordinance 2026-02 so the City can move forward into 2026, all the while working to correct those things that have placed us in fiscal caution, and eventually obtain our bond rating back. I know you guys have asked for—and should have all received—information on where all the cuts were made in the different departments; these were all authored by those department heads.
I ran across an interesting piece of information today. I found annual budget reports going back many, many years. I started looking through those reports and found that in 2002, we had a General Fund budget of $15,817,000. That’s more than we have today, some 20-25 years later. That budget continually went up from 2002. I stopped looking at 2008, but in 2008 the budget was $19,994,000. So we’re well below either one of those, some 20 years later, with expenses rising and our revenues staying stagnant. So with all the hard work the department heads put in, we were able to bring a budget to you where we anticipate our expenses to be less than our projected revenues. It is our hope that we get 2026-02 passed so we can move into the first quarter of next year and start making changes, if we need to, during that first quarter.