MRDD to pay for putting levy issue on May 8 ballot

Many county voters may wind up voting on only one issue.
LISBON -- It is going to cost the Columbiana County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities thousands of dollars to put a countywide levy replacement issue on the May 8 primary ballot.
The county commissioners voted Wednesday to put the issue on the ballot at the request of the MRDD board.
William Devon, the board's superintendent, said the board wants to make a 1.5-mill levy a continuous replacement levy.
Levies bring in an amount based on property values at the time the issue is approved. A replacement levy is based on current values.
Devon said the issue, if approved, would bring in about 2.2 million a year instead of 1.2 million a year. The increase would help the program catch up to current expenses. The issue was first approved in 1981.
The filing deadline for candidates for elections in cities and large villages is 4 p.m. today. As of late Wednesday, there were no contests for the two county municipal court seats or the East Liverpool Municipal Court seat that also includes Liverpool and St. Clair Townships. That means many precincts would not have to be open in May.
Elections Board Director Lois Gall estimated the issue could cost the MRDD board about 50,000. Devon said he estimated it would under 40,000, however.
The Beaver School District is again seeking a bond issue and a levy to build new facilities. The only other filed levies thus far were for the Salem Parks Department and Minerva schools, which affects only a few precincts in Columbiana County. The subdivisions share the cost of operating the polls. The county has 103 precincts.
Under the county's new electronic voting system, the cost of operating a precinct has gone from about 400 to 500 per precinct per election to 1,100 to 1,200 a precinct, elections board officials said.
Devon said his board may try in the fall to get voter approval of another 1.5-mill levy that was approved for 10 years in 1998 and will expire next year.