BUTLER TWP — Township commissioners accepted $5,000 from the Friends of Preston Park Foundation at a meeting Monday, Dec. 18, which will be used to further improve the park.

Tony Stagno, executive director of the Friends of Preston Park Foundation, brought several foundation board members to the meeting and said the money is for the purchase of a utility vehicle, fulfilling a promise from the foundation.

“This past year, the township decided to announce plans to purchase a Kubota UV; at that time the members of the board made a commitment to contribute $5,000 to the cause,” Stagno said.

Stagno, other foundation members and volunteers with the park’s “Monday Morning Maintenance Crew” also attended the meeting to thank commissioner chairman Dave Zarnick, who was leading the last meeting of his term.

Each of the other four commissioners and township administrators also wished Zarnick well, with several saying his connections with state administrators has helped propel initiatives in the township forward over the years. Zarnick, who has been a Butler Township commissioner for 16 years, was not reelected in the 2023 municipal election, but said at the meeting he is proud of the work he has done through his terms.

“I have strived to represent the interests of Butler Township at regional levels,” Zarnick said. “Serving this incredible community has been the honor of a lifetime.”

Commissioners also unanimously passed the 2024 budget, which has expenditures totaling about $11.9 million, and does not include a tax increase for the 13th straight year.

Additionally, the township will not collect the per capita tax for 2024 — which is normally $5 per person — but it could reintroduce the tax in future years.

“We’re not doing away with that tax, we zeroed it out for the coming year,” Zarnick said.

Township manager Tom Knights said the net profit the township gets from the tax is even lower than Zarnick estimated, because of the amount of exonerations the township office needs to sort through in collecting the tax.

The township reviewed an assessment appeal Monday from T&R Battlecreek, which asked for a reassessment of the Dick’s Sporting Goods location in the township. Its assessed value as of 2021 was $9.15 million, and its reassessed value fell to around $7.614 million, according to solicitor Rebecca Black.

The commissioners authorized Black to execute an agreement for the appeal. Black said the township received several assessment appeals, which were filed “a number of years ago.” She also said the dollar amount the township will lose from the reassessment is not yet clear, but this property may not yield as big a loss as others that were recently reassessed.

“Even though those numbers are huge to any reasonable person, the effect on the township generally hasn’t been nearly as significant as the effect on the county and school district,” Black said. “We’ve had a lot of bigger properties that have been put before this board for consideration that involved decreased of 30% of the value and multiple decreased assessment values.”