Trending
LEETONIA -- After being sworn in for another term as Leetonia mayor, before the start of Wednesday's village council meeting, Kevin Siembida gave his annual "State of the Village" address, highlighting the past, present and future of the village and announcing that Leetonia brought in over $1 million income tax last year.
"I am about to talk about numbers that I never had the opportunity to talk about. I never said the word a million before in the village of Leetonia," he said. "The village income tax collected $1,174,732 last year. That's a huge improvement and that shows the viability and health of the village."
Siembida said the significant increase in tax revenue is linked directly to the businesses in the village and the Ohio Department of Development Community Reinvestment Area (CRA) program that provides real property tax exemptions for property owners who renovate existing or construct new buildings.
"We recently started pushing the CRA. That is giving our residents the opportunity to invest in our community, build houses and build businesses which drive our bottom line and allow us to reinvest in our community," he said.
Siembida said a $3,197,610 budget coupled with $300,477 brought in by grants and reimbursements gave the village $3,257,287 to work with last year. In 2024, Leetonia ended with $486,190 and what Siembida called "the largest carryover balances we ever had." He said the money left over after the investments proves the village has retained financial stability and indicates the robust health of the community.
Siembida continued to talk numbers and millions of dollars.
"This is the first year we've invested organically without major things such as the sewer plant and with the money we have generated and built up, we've been able to invest over a million dollars into our community for the first time," he said. "We were able to invest back into the community with the money we brought in very successfully and very efficiently, probably better than I have ever seen. We've come a long way."
Siembida then addressed the village's future.
"This year, 2024, is going to be a very unique year. We are laying out the next 50 years of Leetonia. Some of these large projects will be coming on and starting construction in 2025 and 2026," he explained. "We are doing nearly $6 million of projects in the next three years, and this year is devoted to facilitating and planning those projects."
Siembida did cite raising water rates as one of the challenges still facing the village and said there are several options to help stabilize water costs. He said increasing the size of the village was the base case solution, explaining less water customers equates to higher water fees and vice versa.
"The easiest, which also seems the hardest, is to grow the village of Leetonia to make it less impactful and less expensive for each individual resident by growing. So I have been working to expand our infrastructure to corporation limits with the CDBG (Community Development Block Grant) funding we've already secured," he said.
Siembida also reported that with new construction ongoing in the industrial park, space will soon be depleted. He encouraged the village to locate space for the vision of another industrial park.
"The industrial park brings in about 60 percent of our revenue. If you add another one of those you are looking at doubling your revenue and doubling your investment back into the community," he said.
All and all, Siebida expressed pride in the past and promise in the future for the village.
"I've talked about three things we want to invest in -- our businesses, our infrastructures and our families," he said. "We have been able to continuously do that. We continue to invest in our businesses whether it's with tax incentive programs to attract them or other things. We continue to invest in our families like starting to do the capital improvement projects which actually make it attractive for new families to come here and want to stay and move into Leetonia. And we are constantly investing in our infrastructure."