Photo Provided Belmont Savings Bank presents Belmont County Department of Job and Family Services a $5,000 check. Pictured from left front are bank Executive Vice President of Operations Joe Ticich and DJFS Director Jeff Felton. Second row, St. Clairsville Branch Manager Rachel Dietrich, Children Services staff Trina Palmer, Jennifer Fietz, Amanda Kennedy, Wendy Tomlinson, Annika Burga, DeAsia Burney, Nickie Couch and Hope Romshak. Back row, bank Executive Vice President Business Development Officer Mark Nicholson and DJFS staff Jack Regis, Megan Stuckey and Jessica Cruse.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Belmont Savings Bank donated $5,000 to Belmont County Department of Job and Family Services for its levy renewal campaign.

The donation was given to help the agency purchase yard signs, postcards and various informational and promotional products to help get a message out to residents of Belmont County before Election Day on Nov. 5.

The donation was made to help encourage the passage of a 0.45-mill levy to support, care, and the placement of abused and neglected children in Belmont County.

If it is approved, it will replace and reduce an existing 0.65-mill levy. Regis added that once that happens, a second, 0.35-mill levy will be retired. It expires in the next election cycle.

Regis said the new, reduced levy will cost $15.75 annually for each $100,000 of the county auditor’s appraised value of a property.

“We’ve been operating a kind of not low key but not high profile, somewhere in between campaign to get the word out. Belmont Savings Bank has been a great community partner with supporting many of our programs. But this year, they contributed a very sizable donation to help us,” DJFS Fiscal Advisor Jack Regis Jr. said.

DJFS Director Jeff Felton added, “We are social workers by trade, we’re not politicians, we don’t really know how to do political campaigns.”

He added that if it wasn’t for Belmont County Savings Bank that DJFS would be spending a lot of nights and weekends attempting to generate funding to support the campaign.

“Belmont Savings Bank was a Godsend,” Felton said.

DJFS will have a replacement tax levy on this coming November ballot.

The levy will be a replacement of the existing 0.65 (mill) levy with a reduction of 0.20 mills to constitute 0.45 mills for the purpose of providing support for Children’s Services and the care and placement of children in Belmont County.

“The funds are generated and used to fund Children Services’ operations, we are issued state and federal allocations that we front all of the expenses and get reimbursed typically on a quarterly basis. So the funds are needed to be able to provide the services,” Regis said.

He added that the community has always been supportive of DJFS and has faith that it will continue to be supportive and vote to pass the levy in November.

“These levies go back to probably the mid 1970’s late 1960’s and the county has always been very supportive,” Felton said.

Felton added that counties that don’t have levies don’t have match dollars, meaning that those counties would not be eligible to receive funding from state or federal grants that require a local match.

Commissioner Jerry Echemann said that he urges the community to vote to pass the levy.

“The way that it’s constructed is that it should be a slight reduction in the burden of the taxpayers without hurting any of the services,” Echemann said.

Commissioner J.P. Dutton added that he believes that Belmont County does an incredible job dealing with children’s issues. “There’s a lot of great programs that are occurring every single year, some that aren’t even offered in other counties.” Dutton said, And a lot of that has to do with the support of the community for these levies. We hope that the community continues to support these levies.”

He added that Belmont County officials recognize what it means for the community to continue to support the levies throughout the years and that they are trying their best to lower the burden of the levies while keeping the programs in place.

“These levies do a tremendous job for those that are really at a disadvantage,” Dutton said.