High crime rate makes renewal necessary, official says

The tax won't be hard to sell to voters, an official said.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Moments after the Mahoning County commissioners unanimously placed a permanent half-percent sales tax renewal on the May 8 ballot, Anthony T. Traficanti, chairman of the county commissioners, said failure of the tax would likely put the county in fiscal emergency.
"The jail would be closed," he said Wednesday. If the commissioners were facing closing of the jail, Traficanti said he believes they would impose the tax. "We would have no choice,'' he said. About 70 percent of the county's general fund goes to judicial and law enforcement spending.
Commissioners acted on the tax a day before today's 4 p.m. filing deadline at the county board of elections for getting issues on the May ballot.
The campaign for the tax begins immediately. Sales tax renewal supporters, who have formed a "Committee for Our Future" to promote the tax, announced they'll meet at 7 p.m. today at the Structural Iron Workers Local 207 hall at 694 Bev Road in Boardman.
"I don't think it's going to be a tough sell. I think the taxpayers of Mahoning County understand what it is that we're trying to do here. We have a jail that could be closed by a federal judge," and defendants in criminal cases that can't be jailed, Traficanti said, referring to the federal lawsuit won by jail inmates.
The inmates said overcrowding makes jail conditions unconstitutional, and county common pleas judges enacted an inmate release mechanism to control the jail population. An agreement between the city and county on jail bed allocations for the city would end that suit if it is approved by the inmates' lawyers and a panel of federal judges.
Revenue figures
Each of the county's two half-percent sales taxes generates about 14 million a year for the county's general fund, which is its main operating fund, for a total of about 28 million. The two taxes combined constitute more than 57 percent of the county's 49.6 million general fund budget for 2007. One of the taxes expires at the end of this year and the other in two years.
"I want to thank you for your bold leadership here today in voting to place a half-percent continuous tax on the ballot," county Auditor Michael V. Sciortino told the commissioners immediately after their vote. "We're at a crossroads at this time," he added.
The vote followed a hearing Wednesday attended by more than 25 people, many of them county employees, at which the majority of the 11 speakers called for a permanent tax to be on the ballot. The commissioners made their decision after considering three separate half-percent renewal options -- five years, 10 years and continuous.
No Ohio county with a population or crime rate comparable to Mahoning County's has less than a 1 percent sales tax, Traficanti said. "Unfortunately, in our community, we have a high crime rate and a low tax base," he said, explaining what he said was the need for a continuous tax. "We need continuous revenue streams coming into Mahoning County. Wall Street has told us that," he said, referring to Moody's unfavorable Baa1 rating of Mahoning County's bonds.
"A continuing source of revenue would be one piece to assist in getting it upgraded," Commissioner John A. McNally said of the bond rating. The on-again, off-again sales taxes over the last 10 years have resulted in the county's having to consume 18 million in general fund reserves, he added.