Wood County Recreation discusses serving youth around the area at Wood County Commission meeting
Trending
PARKERSBURG - The Wood County Commission is looking at providing some additional support to the Wood County Recreation Commission.
The Wood County Recreation Commission Board President Sean Andrews and Executive Director Jared Bloxton appeared before the commission Thursday to give an update on the organization and the programs they are doing as the commission provides them with funding. Commissioner Jimmy Colombo also serves on their board.
Over this past summer, their tennis program had 135 participants compared to 85 the previous summer. In their T-Ball program, they had six teams this past season, compared to four teams last summer. They are estimating that they can go to eight teams next summer.
Their Small Fry Basketball had 325 last season and Small Fry Volleyball had 350 kids. Cheerleading for Small Fry Basketball had 50 participants and that is expected to go up around 75 this coming season, Andrews said. They had a senior pickleball program this summer with around 60 people participating with 23 teams.
They are also looking at doing a wrestling program and indoor archery in the future.
"It is nice to see so many people so excited to actively use the park system," Andrews said.
The free Summer Adventures for Kids program had 100 kids sign up within 48 hours.
"This is the project I think we should help fund," Colombo said. "You provide free lunches to the kids by going out into the community and gathering donations.
"It would be nice if we could give $1,500-$2,000 to that. It reaches kids who don't have a lot. There is a lot of participation."
They had the Parkersburg Police Department, the Parkersburg Fire Department, the Master Gardeners Gardening Club and others come in and talk to the kids. They did field trips to Discovery World, the movies and the pool at different times during the summer.
"There were a lot of opportunities available to those young people that we were able to do," Andrews said, adding there are programs ranging for young kids to senior citizens.
Bloxton, who has been in his position since April 1, said they were able to provide lunch to those participants.
"We have never had to turn anyone away," he said, adding, a number of their programs operate that way.
Andrews said they will have an office in the new building being built at Parkersburg City Park. They will also be able to utilize the building at future events.
"Your money is being well spent and our programs are doubling," Andrews said.
In other business, Wood County Assessor John Kelly presented the commission with numbers regarding the exact amount of savings his office was able to do following eliminating two positions last week in action he is taking to address an estimated shortfall of around $357,000 for this fiscal year in his office’s valuation fund.
For the two positions he eliminated and had to let two people go had combined salaries of $95,952, savings on insurance for both positions was $33,955.44, savings on retirement premiums was $8,635.65 and savings for FICA and Medicare was $7,340.33.
"The combined total savings was $145,883.45," Kelly said.
Kelly said there have been a couple of other departments within the county that have had shortages show up in the paperwork due to accounting errors and the money was put in the wrong budget line items.
"I would like to have an audit," Kelly said. "I would like to work on those and see if any of this money (from the projected shortfall) actually has shown up because it was put in the wrong account.
"I wanted to straighten up those accounts."
County Administrator Marty Seufer said there was an incident in the Wood County Sheriff's Tax Office where $750,000 was put in the wrong account.
Wood County Clerk Joe Gonzales said he found out about it when he came into office and that the money had been put in the wrong line item for several years.
"It was always there, it was put in the wrong line item," he said, adding they got it all moved to where it was supposed to be.
Kelly said he wants to be sure where everything is.
"I just want to be sure I'm not doing something to hurt somebody down the road," he said.
Commission President Blair Couch asked for a proposal of the cost of the audit that would focus on the Assessor's office so the commission can approve one and fund it.
"We are talking about a narrowly focused audit to assure us the accounts are correct," Couch said.
Officials said that auditing the county's jail bill has saved the county a lot of money.
Contact Brett Dunlap at bdunlap@newsandsentinel.com