The Summit County Facilities Department is a small but mighty team, if you ask ’em. With only 13 people on staff, employees handle everything maintenance-related for the county, from general maintenance to landscaping and event setup, on a slim but efficient budget.“I don’t think any department has done more with less than Mike’s department over the past 10 to 15 years,” County Manager Shayne Scott told the County Council. “We just continue to dump things on him, and he just takes them on, so we really appreciate that.”The demand for the Facilities Department has increased especially since 2021 and the coronavirus pandemic, said Facilities Manager Mike Crystal during a budget presentation to the Summit County Council last week.To emphasize his point, Crystal showed a graph of the department’s work orders over the past few years. There wasn’t much change during the early years of COVID. The Facilities Department had a little over 600 requests in 2020, which dipped to slightly below 600 the following year. Then, the work orders doubled to 1,400 a year starting in 2022 and continuing throughout 2023 and 2024.“During COVID, other than the times when we were uber sanitizing everything, a lot of people weren’t working in their offices, or at least not every day, so I think they saw a big decrease in demand at that time,” Deputy County Manager Janna Young said after the County Council meeting. “I think that’s why we saw a big jump, but in addition to that, the county has been growing, and that was what we were trying to illustrate to the [County] Council.”Crystal asked for an increase in his budget, given the higher cost of supplies, materials, fuel and other necessities for capital improvements. In 2024, the facilities budget was $3,518,175, Young said, and the proposed budget for next year would bring the Facilities Department’s budget to $3,690,100, approximately a 5% increase.However, his biggest request was to fund one new housekeeping position with an estimated salary of $39,500. Scott supported creating the job.The recommended overall operating budget for the county next year is $89,887,509, according to Young. The Summit County Council is expected to finalize the 2025 budget before January.The post County sees Facilities Department as model of efficiency appeared first on Park Record.