MAHONING COUNTY Auditor: Fiscal watch awaits if sales tax fails

The county faces a $13 million shortfall next year without the sales tax.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
BOARDMAN -- Professional wrestler Dusty "The American Dream" Rhodes used to caution opponents that their future held pain, blues and agony if they met him in a match.
Mahoning County Auditor George Tablack says the same fate awaits county government if voters don't renew a 0.5 percent sales tax Tuesday.
"Next year, with the failure of this renewal, we will be in fiscal watch" at the beginning of the year and fiscal emergency by the end of the year, Tablack said Wednesday.
He was speaking to a group of tax supporters at a rally sponsored by the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber at Mr. Anthony's on South Avenue.
Tablack said the Ohio Auditor's Office has projected that without revenue generated by the tax, the county will be more than $13 million in the red by the end of next year -- enough to put the county in fiscal emergency. The state would send a management team to take control of the county's finances until the situation stabilizes.
In years past, commissioners dipped into a cash reserve to help cover expenses that consistently ran higher than the county's revenue stream. Tablack said those days are over because the cash reserve is gone.
Revenue loss
Even if voters renew the tax, the county still faces a loss of some $3.25 million in revenue next year because of a change in state law that will keep the county from collecting for the first quarter of 2005.
"We are faced with challenges as far into the future as we can see, even with the sales tax," Tablack said.
The county has two 0.5 percent sales taxes on the books, one of which expires Dec. 31. County commissioners are asking voters to renew it as a continuing measure Tuesday. The other tax expires in 2007.
The two taxes combined generate just more than half the county's general fund revenue. Tablack said the bulk of that money goes toward funding the county's criminal justice system, including the courts and the sheriff's department.
He said state law requires the county to fund the courts and county jail.
"The county cannot choose whether to be in the criminal justice business. It is required of us, but we have tried to deal with that diligently," Tablack said.
Layoffs loom
Larry Fauver, president of the local AFL/CIO, said the county's economy cannot afford to sustain the massive layoffs of county government employees that will happen if the tax is defeated.
"We're fighting every day to maintain jobs. We need no more layoffs in this county," Fauver said.
He pleaded with voters to approve the tax so the new board of commissioners will have money with which to work. There will be two new commissioners next year because Ed Reese and Vicki Allen Sherlock are not seeking re-election.
Tom Humphries, president and CEO of the chamber, said county employees and bargaining units have tried to help the situation by taking concessions.
Some unions, such as the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 141 and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 1156, have accepted wage freezes and begun paying 10 percent of their health insurance premiums.
Humphries and Fauver said making the tax permanent will better allow commissioners to make financial plans for the future with a stable source of income.
bjackson@vindy.com