Geauga Soil & Water Conservation District Held Annual Envirothon Competition: West Geauga High School to Advance to State Competition
Geauga Soil & Water Conservation District (GSWCD) Board Meeting - May 12, 2026
Meeting Details: The Geauga Soil & Water Conservation District (GSWCD) met on May 12, 2026 at 7:30 am at the Geauga County Office Building, 12611 Ravenwood Dr. #240, Chardon, OH.
Board Attendance: Jeff Huntsberger, Board Chair; Robert Lausin, Vice Chair (arrived late); Tracy Engle, Secretary; Mary Slingluff, Treasurer; Dee Belew, Fiscal Agent
Staff Attendance: Carmella Shale, District Director/Engineer; Gail Prunty, Education/Communications Specialist; Katie Williams, Conservation Education Coordinator
Others in Attendance: Julie Parker, District Conservationist, United States Department of Agriculture/Natural Resources Conservation Services (USDA/NRCS); Rebecca O’Neill, Program Specialist, Ohio Department of Agriculture/Division of Soil & Water Conservation (ODA-DSWD)
Open Board Meeting 7:35 am
Pledge of Allegiance
MOTIONS Approved:
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May 12, 2026 Board Meeting Agenda
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Approval of April 14, 2026 Board Meeting Minutes - approved with changes to Ms. Shale noted as the recording secretary because she was there for the meeting after the normal recorder had to leave to manage the tree delivery.
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Approval of April 27, 2026 Special Board Meeting Minutes
OPEN PUBLIC DISCUSSION - No Comments
MOTION Approved – Accept Treasurer’s Reports from previous month (including all deposits and transfers that occurred in addition to previous approved expenditures)
MOTIONS Approved
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Money transfer in the amount of $7,276.27 from Huntington Savings (Electronic/Stripe Payments through end of April 2026) to Huntington Checking
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Payment for expenditures, purchase orders, vouchers and bills as presented including EFT payments and estimates and Sales Tax EFT payment of $316.20 less ¾% Discount Ms. Shale noted that there are a lot of payments for the Envirothon, including expenses for porta potties, but all expenses were covered by sponsorships which all came into the GSWCD.
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MOTION Approved and acknowledged the list of refunds at the end of agenda totaling $2,657.27 in the month of April primarily for trees that the supplier could not provide, 2 overpayments for plan reviews and one refund for chainsaw safety class. Ms. Shale explained that during their tree sale, the supplier ended up not supplying several trees for orders that had been paid for, so GSWCD either refunded customer’s money or some customers opted to order a different tree. 51 customers were contacted for the first tree that didn’t make it and almost all took the substitute tree. The second instance was in regard to a magnolia tree that didn’t make it after the fluctuating spring hard freezes. This Observer asked Ms. Shale if GSWD had to pay swipe fees on all these refunds, and she confirmed they did have to pay swipe fees on all the additional transactions, which cut into their profits.
SCHEDULED GUEST: REBECCA O’NEILL, PROGRAM SPECIALIST, ODA-DSWC
There is an HR Training on September 3rd, where they will bring in a consultant, Work Spring, to do the training if any of the board members are interested.
State Match: ODA is in the process of reviewing local dollars and completing the process.
Salary Summary: ODA is collecting salary data for that now so they can get the data out to the counties soon. Ms. O’Neil stated that they are also looking at credit card fees, which are 3% fees. She advised the Auditor of State has requested that each district have a credit card policy for purchasing that requires that payment with check be the first option rather than credit card. Ms. Shale advised that they try to get an invoice first, if possible, to pay with a check but if they can’t get that then they pay with a credit card.
H2Ohio has extended existing agreements for two years and accepted an additional 100,000 acres for enrollment, which has been successfully filled.
Ms. O’Neil advised that her office has put together a form to help districts with ideas on how to market their relevancy to the public.
Supervisor Training School is July 26-28 in Lincoln County, if anyone is interested in attending.
Ms. O’Neil ended with thanking GSWCD for all their work.
SCHEDULED GUEST: JULIE PARKER, DISTRICT CONSERVATIONIST, USDA/NRCS
There have been some pre-approvals to programs this year. In Geauga County there were: 10 Environmental Quality Incentives Program (Equip), 6 Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), 2 Forest Management Plans, 3 Contracts for cropland & specialty crop producers, 5 Forestry/Wildlife.
Quality Assurance review is currently underway.
A meeting was held last week advising that there are specific styles, colors and templates that must be approved nationally before USDA employees can do a powerpoint. This Observer asked Ms. Parker if the powerpoints she was referring to are for the public or for other districts. She confirmed anything that is presented to the public must be approved nationally before presenting. She followed up by stating that even things that are reported to GSWCD are now supposed to be approved nationally first. Many responses from board members and employees noted it would be months to get information in a visual format with this new process.
14. KATIE WILLIAMS, CONSERVATION EDUCATION COORDINATOR
Envirothon was held on April 29th. They had 48 teams. Ms. Williams advised that Chardon had a strong presence and West Geauga did really well and advancing to State. Cardinal, who are newer to competing, had three teams this year. She noted that nothing has been on social media or in the newspaper because they did have a grievance and they were doing due diligence on that. That has been resolved and she planned on doing a news release and social media later that day. This event was fully funded by sponsorships so they did not have to dip into any GSWCD funds. Ms. Williams noted that the kids were excited about stickers donated by a sponsor. She showed participant evaluations to the board. Ms. Williams noted that this program is a lot of work, but it is dear to her heart because it is for 9-12 graders and “they grow up to be us.” She ended with advising she had over 30 programs to start work on in May.
GAIL PRUNTY, EDUCATION/COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST
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Chainsaw Safety Class - The All Day Level 1 workshop was a success. There were 19 participants in each class, out of 20. They were sold out but each class had one participant not show. During this workshop, each participant got to cut down a tree. Ms. Prunty stated it was difficult for her to cut down that many trees on Arbor day. This was overall a Woodlands Wednesdays Program. This program would normally cost participants $225, but thanks to a grant, it cost each only $20 which was used to buy personal protective equipment. She provided evaluations to the board. Ms. Prunty gave a shout out to Auburn Township for providing a site (a cemetery) and a discount on rental. This was the last program for chainsaw safety for a while.
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MOTION Approved - Camp Canopy Scholarship Application Award There was only one applicant this year for this scholarship opportunity. The applicant is a 10th grader who is homeschooled. She was awarded a scholarship to Camp Canopy last year and did so well on her final test that she earned a $1,000 scholarship to college. This student is in 4H, takes Lakeland classes and plays softball and volleyball. The full amount of these scholarships is $500, which the board approved.
CARMELLA SHALE, DISTRICT DIRECTOR/ENGINEER
Budget Hearing Update - She attended the budget hearing last week. She shared the distribution of GSWCD workload during this hearing, which included: 3,318 Site Inspections, 409 Plan Reviews, 234 Post Construction Reviews, 425 Sites Reviewed, over 500 Stormwater basins. Most of their technical assistance time is spent on drainage assistance with 144 drainage calls. Agricultural Pollution programs, like H2Ohio, take a lot of time to go through. Education Programs provided 40 adult programs and 122 youth programs. Communications with the public included 294 Facebook posts,61 News Releases and various website updates.
Ms. Shale said the budget hearing went well. She was asked what services they have to provide as they continue to look at what will happen if property tax is eliminated. Fee increases were suggested for plan reviews and inspections; however, when Ms. Shale got back to the office she realized that they do not get State Match funds for fees collected which would cut funds even more. She emailed that information to the budget committee who acknowledged it.
MOTION Approved – Update/acknowledge/approve change of applicant on Little Punderson Grant AquadDoc submitted the grant application, but they received it back and advised that GSWDC had to be the actual applicant of the grant application. Ms. Shale advised nothing else will change on the grant. Reviewer Note: See the March 10, 2026 LWVG Observer report where this grant was initially discussed.
MOTION – Acknowledge/approve H2Ohio Conservation Pilot Grant This grant will fund best management practices and not staff time. They submitted the grant application at the last minute because they originally did not think they would submit one, but decided they should. The grant will be used to fund construction of 3 bin small compost for owners of small numbers of horses. They will pay 75% of the cost and the owner will pay 25%. The program will include an educational component. The grant application is for $112,500.
MOTION Approved – Waive Annual Leave Accrual Limit of 240 hours for Carmella Shale until October 1, 2026 Ms. Shale advised that she has gone over her annual leave accrual limit due to her workload demand. The board approved the waiving of her accrued annual leave limit until October 1, 2026.
MOTION (Roll call) - Executive session for the purpose of consideration of employment and employee evaluation per ORC 121.22(G)(1).
Observer note: Executive session is not open to the public as they were interviewing and discussing evaluations. This Observer asked about the rest of the meeting and she noted that they would only be discussing the resignation of Colleen Lair, listed below. This Observer left at 8:30 am.
CARMELLA SHALE, DIRECTOR/ENGINEER
a. MOTION – Colleen Lair, Administrative Assistant, Resignation
b. MOTION – Remove Colleen Lair as signer on Checks and other banking matters
c. MOTION – Remove Colleen Lair as Authorized Signer on Auditor Accounting Forms and Payroll Authorization Forms
d. MOTION – Temporarily Change Credit Card Compliance Officer to Carmella Shale until an Administrative Assistant is hired.
e. MOTION – Advertise for Administrative Assistant with closing date of June 30th or until filled.
NEXT BOARD MEETING: Tuesday, June 9, 2026
Meeting Adjourned
Observer Note: GSWCD is accepting applications for an Administrative Assistant through June 20, 2026. For more information on the position and application process go here. Summer teacher workshop, Advanced Wonders of Watershed, will be held June 23-25, 2026. The deadline to register for this program is June 1st, for more information click here.
More information available here.
Observer: Wendy Landry
Editor: Rooney Moy
Reviewer: Carol Benton
Date Submitted: May 26, 2026
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