MAHONING COUNTY Budget short $13M for '05

The county had about $47 million to spend this year.
YOUNGSTOWN -- Mahoning County's two new commissioners are going to find they'll have about $13 million less to spend in 2005.
The county budget commission, composed of the county auditor, treasurer and prosecutor, certified that the county will have $34.2 million to spend next year, Joseph Caruso, assistant county administrator, told the commissioners at their meeting Thursday.
He added, however, that the county won't officially close the books until Dec. 31. He said there may be other revenue coming in before the end of this year that could increase the amount the county has to spend.
Caruso said the county had about $47 million to spend this year. Directly attributable to the spending decrease is the loss of money generated by the half-percent sales tax voters defeated in November. That tax expires Dec. 31, and brought in between $13 million and $14 million, or about one-fourth of the county's annual general fund revenue.
Caruso said not all the financial figures have been calculated, but he expected 2005 funding requests from all county departments to exceed the $34.2 million.
Commissioners most likely will pass a temporary appropriation for the first three months of 2005. They have until April 1 to pass a full-year budget.
Requirement
Commissioners are required by law to have at least two public hearings -- set for 10 a.m. Dec. 13 and Dec. 17 in their hearing room in the basement of the courthouse -- before deciding whether to override the referendum and impose the sales tax.
Caruso said the commissioners' office has received several phone calls from county residents about the time and place of the hearings.
"We want to hear from as many people as possible," Caruso said.
Layoffs already have occurred in the sheriff's department, and the juvenile court has ended night court sessions because of the sales tax defeat.
Commissioners Ed Reese and Vickie Sherlock chose not to run for re-election, and voters selected Anthony Traficanti and John A. McNally IV as their replacements last month. Incumbent Commissioner David Ludt was not up for election.
Review sought
In other business, Sherlock said she will ask the prosecutor's office to review a judge's ruling that forces the county to give the former county convention and visitor's bureau $400,000 in bed-tax revenue it had collected before the commissioners cut off the funding.
The county has since formed another visitor's bureau.
The commissioners had claimed the money collected is public and should be returned to the county because the old CVB is no longer considered a public agency.
County representatives also will be in federal court Dec. 13 in Akron as a trial begins on whether the operation of the county jail violates inmates rights. Inmates claim the jail is overcrowded; the county claims the jail has issues but is being run soundly by the sheriff's department, Caruso said.