EAST LIVERPOOL Fund division isn't legal, suit brought by city says

East Liverpool wants the court to impose a previous funding arrangement.
By NORMAN LEIGH
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
LISBON -- Weeks after being rebuffed by the Ohio Supreme Court, East Liverpool city officials are renewing their effort to ditch a 2002 Ohio law that stripped the city of thousands of dollars annually in state tax dollars known as local government funds.
This time, the city is trying to convince Columbiana County Common Pleas Court that the law is unconstitutional.
Mayor Delores Satow, city Auditor Kimberly Woomer and Treasurer Christina Clark filed a suit late last week against the county budget commission, the county, townships in the county, and cities and villages in the county.
The lawsuit argues that the local government fund distribution law sponsored by state Rep. Charles Blasdel of East Liverpool, R-1st, runs afoul of the state constitution.
City officials are asking the court to declare the measure unconstitutional and to forbid the county from distributing nearly $4.8 million in 2003 local government funds according to a formula adopted using the new law.
The county budget commission employed the law in August 2002 to alter the formula and reduce East Liverpool's share from 27 percent to little more than 4 percent.
What's behind this
The new formula gives other governments in the county a larger share of the funds, which are distributed annually by the state and are a major revenue source for many communities.
Being the county's largest city, East Liverpool had previously exercised its veto power to thwart efforts to reduce its portion.
But Blasdel's new law erased the city's veto, enabling the county budget commission, made up of the county prosecutor, auditor and treasurer, to adopt the new formula that slashes East Liverpool's annual take.
The city argues in the lawsuit that the new law is unconstitutional partly because it deprives the city's taxpayers of the right to have their elected municipal representatives vote on the new funding distribution formula.
The lawsuit also maintains that the law unconstitutionally enables the budget commission to violate a 1990 agreement between the city and the budget commission that set East Liverpool's funding share at 27 percent.
The city asked the Ohio Supreme Court in January to declare the law unconstitutional and ban the budget commission from implementing the new distribution formula.
But the Supreme Court dismissed the city's action in May, saying it must first argue its case in common pleas court.
County Auditor Nancy Milliken and county Treasurer Linda Bolon declined Monday to comment on the lawsuit. County Prosecutor Robert Herron was unavailable.