Brookfield trustees approved a 2025 budget March 3 after more than six hours of review the week before. This 2025 budget re-establishes a more normal budget year after officials were allocated more than $1.3 million since 2020 from the CARES Act and the American Rescue Plan Act. Trustees were able to pay for some items and projects that would have had to come out of the regular township budgets.

The most pressing issue for township officials is the $77,131 budget in the cemetery fund. The budget is down from $101,166 in 2024 and shows $28,000 more in expenses than revenue. The cemetery is funded by sales of graves and columbarium niches and opening and closing when someone is buried. The township started selling columbarium niches in 2022 and an initial rush in sales buoyed the cemetery budget, but those sales have leveled off, said Cemetery Sexton Jaime Fredenburg.

The trustees have two options in addressing the budget: move money from the general fund or cut expenses, he said. In cutting expenses, the trustees could eliminate the position of seasonal employee, who cuts the grass and landscapes. The township has a full-time employee assigned to the cemetery who works on road department tasks as needed. If the seasonal employee position is eliminated, road department members would have to help out at the cemetery with routine maintenance, Fredenburg said. The trustees opted not to eliminate the seasonal position but cut the hours from 40 a week to 32.

Other cost-cutting alternatives could include not planting trees in the section with the columbarium, which is something the trustees had committed to do; setting aside money for a mower; or banking sick time, he said.

Fiscal Officer Dena McMullin said she has set aside $24,000 in the general fund for the cemetery. While Trustee Dan Suttles said he doesn’t want to pull money from the general fund, he also said he did not want to pull back on the care of the cemetery. McMullin said she will not move the money from the general fund to the cemetery fund unless the “cemetery (fund) is looking really sad,” and reviews the cemetery fund’s financial situation throughout the year.

The fire and emergency medical services budget was the subject of lengthy discussion. Fire Chief David Masirovits has proposed buying a pumper truck and an ambulance and making building improvements. Trustee Dan Suttles said he was not sure spending all that money – $292,000 – was a good idea.

The department has a fire fund largely funded by property taxes and an emergency medical services fund largely funded by billings for ambulance service. Masirovits has set a combined $2.6 million budget that is “based on carryover.” The department is expected to generate about $1.6 million in new money in 2025, leaving the rest to come from unspent money from past years. The budget appropriates most of the carryover from 2024 to supplement the new money, but Masirovits said he appropriated that much just so it’s available if needed. He does not project spending all his budgeted money and hopes to have a “substantially large cushion” at the end of the year.

With the department taking out of service in the last year a pumper truck and a rescue truck, the purchase of a new pumper is an “absolute necessity,” Masirovits said. The chief wants to take out a loan for the truck and expects to pay about $112,000 a year over the life of the loan. Masirovits does not have a specific truck in mind yet, nor any financial data on the loan.

He also wants to buy a new ambulance for $150,000, and trade in a 2021 model for $50,000, reducing the purchase cost to about $100,000. If the township buys an ambulance, it would have three ambulances under manufacturer warranty, at least for 2025, reducing his maintenance expense, he said.

The other capital expenses include remodeling the report room and adding a railing and steps to an attic storage room in the main fire station; repairing the decaying wooden siding on the main fire station exterior; painting the truck bays at the main fire station; and building cabinets to hold the equipment taken off the rescue truck.

“I tried to move the money so we could make capital purchases comfortably and still be able to afford the entire budget,” Masirovits said.

Suttles said he worried that Masirovits was looking to spend too much money now without enough consideration of the future of the department. He also said that he doesn’t want to have to lay off employees because money went into something else.

“I don’t want to go down that path, unless I have to, of raising taxes for our residents, especially based on the future,” Suttles said.

“My only concern is, if we don’t do some of these things, the list doubles in the future and then doubles again and before you know it it tips over because we can’t afford to do anything and we crumble,” Masirovits said.

McMullin reminded the trustees that just because a department head has budgeted for an item or a project doesn’t mean the money has to be spent. “His expenditures are still contingent on the OK of you guys when they come up,” she said.

The road department is funded by property taxes – including a 3.5-mill levy for road work – gasoline taxes and motor vehicle license fees. The department also has been successful in getting Ohio Public Works Commission grants to supplement the road paving projects.

Fredenburg has proposed buying a five-ton dump truck with plow and spreader with a loan, and a pickup with plow outright. He also wants to increase the amount of road salt he buys from 300 tons a year to 400 because this winter was a “hard season” and he used a lot of salt. He also proposed putting away $20,000 toward the construction of a new equipment storage building.

Police Chief Aaron Kasiewicz said he increased the portion of his budget dedicated to salaries so, hopefully, he doesn’t have to scramble to find the money to pay employees like he did this year. 2024 was unusual in that he paid a lot of overtime to cover shifts because he didn’t hire someone to replace the position left open after Chief Dan Faustino’s retirement; he moved one patrolman into the role of detective; another patrolman was deployed for military service for part of the year; and he had a major event with the standoff on Lucy Street in December that required lots of manpower.

The chief said he wants to buy a new car this year, improve the driving surface of the newly installed carport and hire a contractor to repair areas of the garage where the concrete has lifted.

The police department budget is mostly funded by property taxes. Kasiewicz said he had a discussion with Trumbull County Eastern District Court Judge Marty Nosich about the fact that the amount of money collected in fines by the court – part of which is passed onto police departments – has dropped significantly during Nosich’s time on the bench. 

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Major Brookfield Township appropriations for 2025, with 2024 numbers in parentheses:

  • General fund, $1,112,070, which includes carryover funds of $827,298 from 2024 ($672,200).
  • Motor vehicle license fund, which goes to the road department, $203,794, which includes a carryover of $125,994 ($143,604).
  • Gasoline tax fund, which goes to the road department, $331,418, which includes a carryover of $138,168 ($292,506).
  • Road and bridge fund, which goes to the road department, $1,258,781, which includes a carryover of $412,496 ($1,106,201).
  • Cemetery fund, $77,131, which includes a carryover of $19,131 ($101,166).
  • Police district fund, $1,205,000, which includes a carryover of $386,939 ($1,157,100).
  • Fire district fund, $1,414,500, which includes a carryover of $409,666 ($1,359,925).
  • Ambulance and emergency services fund, which goes to the fire department, $1,067,500, which includes a carryover of $613,661 ($854,500).

The total appropriated funds is $6,739,501, up from $6,244,554 in 2024 and $6,100,515 in 2023. The total of carryover funds is $3,193,590, up from $2,469,832 carried over from 2023 to 2024.