MAHONING COUNTY Commissioners brace for failure of tax levy

An official said loss of the tax will cost more than $12 million a year and force layoffs.
By JoANNE VIVIANO
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Mahoning County commissioners took the first step toward preparing for layoffs by passing a resolution that authorizes job abolishment.
The resolution was added Thursday to a prepared budget by Commissioner Ed Reese just before the panel's weekly meeting. It passed unanimously.
Reese said the resolution will allow commissioners to lay off personnel if necessary. It does not name any specific employees or job titles.
Commissioners seek renewal of a 0.5-percent sales tax in the March primary election. The current tax expires Dec. 31. Commissioner David Ludt said loss of the tax will cost the community more than $12 million per year.
"There will definitely be a layoff," he said. "That will be devastating to the county."
Ludt calls its passage a "no-brainer" because it is a renewal and not an increase.
County Auditor George Tablack also urged commissioners to retrieve $400,000 from the Youngstown-Mahoning County Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Tablack said such a move makes sense because Trumbull County is in a similar situation.
"Trumbull County is aggressively attempting to recover the funds through its legal division and we are not," Tablack said.
Commissioner Vicki Allen Sherlock said the commissioners are working with Prosecutor Paul J. Gains to determine the best way to handle the matter. Legal issues, she said, must be ironed out.
"To me it's totally frustrating because they've got tax money and they should turn it over. We're going for everything that we can," Sherlock said. "[When meeting with Gains,] I think we were as passionate as possible about our desire to do whatever it takes to recover those funds."
In October, commissioners voted to discontinue funding to the CVB, which they formed in 1986. The CVB had been allocated all revenue from a 3-percent county bed tax for operating expenses and still has about $400,000 remaining.
With the CVB disbanded, 2 percent of the bed-tax revenue goes toward operation of the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport and the rest goes to a new visitors bureau made up of county officials.
Tablack said commissioners must act quickly before the money is gone, adding that the bureau spends about $200,000 every three months.
Last week, commissioners said they were considering asking the Ohio Auditor's Office to conduct a special audit of funds being held by the CVB.
The bureau has filed two lawsuits against the commissioners. One challenges a modification in state law that allowed the distribution of bed-tax revenue to be changed. The second asks the courts to force Tablack to hand over bed-tax revenue that was collected in the four months before commissioners changed their policy.
Lockout
Commissioners also heard from Rich Morgan, a locked-out employee of WKBN-TV 27 and WYFX-TV 17/62. Morgan, who has worked for the company for 25 years, said he wanted to make sure commissioners understood that members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians are not on strike. The workers were locked out Jan. 31.
"We were willing to continue to negotiate," he said. "We want to work; we are all professionals."
Morgan said employees had rejected a proposal from management that increases the amount workers pay toward their health insurance premiums from 7 percent to 26 percent. The proposal also offered no pay increases the first year and 2-percent increases in the second and third years.
Negotiations are to continue today between managers and a national union representative, but Morgan said employees are not optimistic that an agreement will be reached.
Timothy Berlekamp, director of the county's recycling division, said he has stopped advertising with the television stations because of the lockout.