County commissioners choose realistic tax renewal

It is time for Mahoning County to have at least half of its sales tax revenue approved by the voters in a way that gives the county some sense of economic stability.
The decision by commissioners to place a half- percent renewal of the sales tax on the May 8 ballot as a permanent tax was the best one they could have made.
Mahoning County now has two half-percent piggyback sales tax issues, both renewable every five years. That means ever two years or so, county officials have to spend time campaigning for voter approval of a tax renewal. While that may give the electorate a sense of empowerment, it comes at an unacceptably high price.
Planning impediment
The county is hampered in its ability to make long-range plans, and when voters for one reason or another don't renew one of the issues, the county is sent into a tailspin.
There will be sundry forces in opposition to the tax, including some who are against the county's efforts to consolidate offices in the old South Side Hospital building and others who have one reason or another to be unhappy with any of a dozen different elected officials, from the commissioners, to the sheriff, the prosecutors, various judges or the county engineer.
There are any number of reasons -- some better than others -- to be unhappy with county government. The system is imperfect and the people who are running it are imperfect. But that can be said about any institution or business in the county or in the state, the nation, the world.
Voting against a tax is always easier than voting for a tax, and anyone who wants to vote against it can always find a reason or an excuse.
But you don't swat a fly on your forehead with a sledgehammer, and you shouldn't vote against a tax that is vital to the orderly provision of government services on the theory that you are going to teach an elected official a lesson of some sort.
If Mahoning County does not maintain a steady revenue stream, those officials will have headaches, to be sure. But they'll still get their paychecks, because state law requires it. It's ordinary working people on the county payroll who will lose their jobs and ordinary citizens who will lose services -- chief among them safety services.
Do the math
The bottom line is that Mahoning County cannot operate without the half-percent sales tax, which produces about 14 million toward the county's general fund budget of nearly 50 million.
And while that is a lot of money, it is not an unreasonable amount for a county of the size, population and profile of Mahoning County.
The state sales tax rate is 5.5 percent. All 88 counties have approved some level of piggyback sales tax on top of that. The total rate in Mahoning County is 6.5 percent. Only eight counties in the state have lower rates. Twenty-nine counties are the same. Fifty-one counties have higher rates, ranging from 6.75 percent to 7.5 percent. The largest number, 37, have tax rates of 7 percent, and two counties, including Columbiana County, will go from 6.5 percent to 7 percent in April.
Given those numbers, it is unreasonable to suggest that Mahoning County can operate on less. The commissioners are right to seek approval of a permanent half-percent tax to replace the five-year tax that is due to expire at the end of this year. The voters would be wise to approve it this May.