Democrat incumbent John Kennedy faces challenge from Republican Joseph Bica in Portage County Treasurer race

Democrat incumbent John Kennedy hopes to retain his seat as Portage County treasurer. He faces a challenge from Republican Joseph Bica. We spoke to both of them.

Joseph Bica

Bica served as a Ravenna City Council member from 2002 to 2010, as mayor from 2010 to 2016 and as president of City Council from 2016 to 2020. He served on multiple city, county and regional boards and committees. He manages daily operations at US Wine Exports Co., which he founded, and helps with Bica’s Lock Shop, a family business.

John Kennedy has taken rather an activist role as treasurer. Would you continue that stance? What do you see as the proper role of the county treasurer?

“My goal is to be a very progressive and forward treasurer, but to have more public engagement. The treasurer needs to be more of an educator, a person that is out there in the public eye trying to get as much information, as much transparency out to the public about tax base, valuations, budgets, things of that nature. I don’t think a lot of people are aware of overall budgets within the county, and how money is spent based on departmental needs.”

“With the recent property revaluations, there seems to be some disconnect in how that is going to directly affect them. I know that the auditor is trying to make strides to inform the taxpaying public on how that’s going to affect their tax bill. I think it is the responsibility also of the treasurer to take a very aggressive role in educating the public on how the taxes are determined, what the taxes are going to be, how the taxes are going to be used.”

What issues are facing the county treasurer’s office? How would you address them?

“One of the items that the county treasurer’s going to have to start dealing with is the overall budget. The county treasurer sits on the budget commission. In my role as mayor, I did a lot of financial modeling that would give some background on how the budget should be formulated.”

“As treasurer you really need to be more involved in the budgetary process as an upper level administrator and looking at long-term investments, long-term expenditures and long-term income streams, so that the county isn’t caught off guard.”

“My style as an administrator, as I’ve been an administrator before in that type of position, would be to do those things.”

Why are you getting back into public service when you’ve got businesses to run?

“I feel it’s a great time for me to enter the public sector again. I am truly an analytical numbers person, and made huge strides with the city of Ravenna’s budget and finance for years.”

“I think that’s really what the county is going to need moving forward: a numbers person that has an enormous amount of experience in the public sector financial world. I think that’s extremely important for that position.”

“I’m bringing nearly 20 years of public sector experience back to the table for the county, which I think is very important, and a proven record of performance. Really taking the politics out of this because the treasurer’s position is a nonpolitical position.”

“Of all of the positions within the county, and some of them get very political, I think the treasurer’s position and the auditor’s position are two positions that are very anti-political, that really have a lot of responsibility, and they need to keep it that way.”

John Kennedy

Kennedy was appointed Portage County treasurer in 2023 and serves on multiple county boards and commissions.

What should the treasurer’s role be? How and why have you expanded that role?

“We play a multitude of roles in the treasurer’s office. There are three main buckets: tax collector, banker for the county and chief investment officer.”

“We collect taxes. Those are essential because they pay for things: fire protection, schools, our parks, our police. All of that is a big, big, big piece of the job. We do that a couple times a year for real estate and for our mobile homes, as well. This money is used to fund a lot of the essential services that we all utilize: things like public assistance, emergency management, prosecutions, all of that.”

“We have to manage the treasury’s finances with the auditor. We have to make daily reports, we have to reconcile these financial statements with the county auditor. We have to do that by law. We do monthly reconciliations regarding that.”

“The third obvious piece is the chief investment officer for the county. We have to manage in a fiscally responsible way. We have to safeguard. We have to be a good steward of the county’s money to make sure that our investments are diversified to achieve optimal returns for our hard working taxpayers here in Portage County.”

Kennedy also referenced ongoing meetings with the county’s investment portfolio managers and with the county’s investment advisory committee, which includes county commissioners.

“I have the opportunity to update everybody as to how the investment portfolio has been performing, what interest have we earned on those investments, and what’s our rate of return. The investment portfolio, we’re doing very well there. I’d like to see us increase our return on investment on that, even.”

“Here’s where I think I have added value to it, where I’ve helped to expand it. We’ve got a lot of programs that we offer to the public that folks just don’t know about. They’re not aware of it. No one has reached out to them about these different programs that are available.”

“One of my main jobs is to be promoter of the services we offer and the programs we have. Not only to be able to talk about our own programs in the treasurer’s office, like our low interest loan program that we offer, but also to talk about the reappraisals that were recently done, and being able to give the talking points that [county auditor] Matt Kelly has been giving in terms of explaining to people how to challenge it. If your appraisal went up, and if you want to fight it, what are the procedures for doing that?”

“I’ve been to all 18 township trustee meetings over the spring, summer and now fall. Matt’s been at a lot of these meetings, too. He does his spiel about the revaluations and then I talk about what we need to do to reduce the burden, especially for our 65 and older, our seniors who are on fixed incomes.”

“There’s only so much we can do at the county level. We have to follow the Ohio Revised Code, so our hands are tied, but where our hands are not tied is in standing up and speaking out on behalf of people in our community. Both Matt and I are committed to lobbying our state lawmakers to push especially for Homestead Exemption reform.”

“It’s easier to amend existing law than it is to pass new bills. Change the Homestead. Get rid of the silly $38,600 income requirement. Double or triple the income level. And right now you max out at $25,000 for benefits. What not increase that as well?”

What issues are facing the county treasurer’s office? How would you address them?

“The number one issue in the state of Ohio right now is property taxes and the way we are overly reliant in the state of Ohio on property taxes and property valuations to fund our public schools. Every day people come in here, our seniors who are struggling to pay their bills to put food on the table. They’re on fixed incomes, maybe there’s medical issues.”

“I worry that if we don’t address the tax issue at the state level, and if the can keeps getting kicked down the road, and we don’t deal with it, we’re going to have more and more people who are going to end up in delinquency. I would hate to see our county, and the rest of the state, having more people fall into financial hard times because they’re not able to pay their bills, including property taxes.”

“There are limited resources available to help the people who need it the most in our county. If we can find some relief via property tax relief, that would be the top priority for me. And our seniors have to be priority when it comes to finding tax relief for them.”

“This is where my background as an advocate, as a person who’s not afraid to go down to Columbus and advocate comes in. I’m a person who is very comfortable with organizing and advocating and standing up for the people in our county who need the help the most.”