Trumbull officials to give loan to Vienna company
WARREN — Trumbull County commissioners are expected to authorize a $400,000 Ohio Department of Development grant be given to the Vienna factory Starr Fabricating in the form of a 3 percent, 15-year loan.
The $400,000 is from the state’s Community Development Block Grant program and will be added to $50,000 from the county’s Revolving Loan Fund to Andreas Forester of T&F Realty LLC so he can acquire Starr Fabricating and rename it Starr Manufacturing.
Starr Fabricating, located on Warren-Sharon Road just west of state Route 193, makes metal bases for large equipment and will be trying to expand its business with the loan, said Alan Knapp, director of the county planning commission.
The company, which has recently grown to 62 employees, promises to create 18 jobs in the next three years with the additional $450,000, Knapp said.
Other resources being used for the acquisition are a U.S. Department of Agriculture-backed loan of $950,000 from National City Bank and $600,000 in cash, Knapp said.
In other business at their meeting Wednesday, commissioners are expected to give nonunion employees the same 3 percent per year pay increase as agreed to by members of three of the county’s American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employee unions in late January.
James Keating, the county’s personnel director, said the resolution will affect the pay and benefits of 250 employees and cost the county $980,000 through July 31, 2009. The salary schedule will be for the period starting Aug. 1, 2006, though the pay increases are only retroactive to Jan. 1, 2007 — the same as the union contracts, Keating said.
The non-union employees will also increase their contribution to health care and increase copays on their prescriptions and emergency room visits the same as the union employees, Keating said. The contact calls for their health care to increase from $40 per month for individuals and $80 for family coverage to 10 percent of the total — or about $118 per month for a family plan.
Keating had said the new contract for about 200 union employees was going to cost the county about $590,000 more over the three years.
Two county unions have yet to reach an agreement on a contract.
The contract covering 120 sheriff’s department employees is being decided by an arbitrator, who must decide whether to increase wages by the union’s last offer of 4, 4.25 and 4 percent or the county’s offer of 3 percent.
The other contract pending is with the AFSCME union representing about 165 to 170 workers in the Department of Job and Family Services whose contract expires this summer.
Commissioners also changed Wednesday’s meeting from 9:30 a.m. at the Trumbull Career and Technical Center to 10:55 a.m. at the commissioners meeting room because of a possible school cancellation at the TCTC.