Mahoning jail borrowing OK’d

Consolidate borrowing
to save on fees, the
administrator told
commissioners.

By PETER H. MILLIKEN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — The Mahoning County commissioners have issued more than $21 million worth of bonds and notes for 14 purposes, including $4 million to help the county pay 60 deputy sheriffs it hired this year to fully open county jail facilities.

The $4 million will be used to pay down county debt and free up other general fund revenues, such as property tax revenue, to pay the deputies, county Administrator George Tablack explained. Most of the items on the borrowing list were rollovers of pre-existing notes, Tablack said.

The county receives a cash payment at the time the bonds are issued and will repay the investors who provided the money over time.

Eleven of the borrowing items passed Thursday by a routine unanimous vote, but three items passed by a 2-1 vote, with Commissioners Anthony Traficanti and David Ludt in favor and Commissioner John McNally dissenting.

The three that passed by a split vote were the $4 million in sales tax anticipation bond notes; a $2,250,000 bond for proposed improvements to the nearly century-old county courthouse; and a $410,000 bond for proposed improvements to the adjacent county administration building.

Saying he didn’t receive the 14 borrowing resolutions until Wednesday, McNally requested another week to consider those three items. “I would like to have some more discussion in some staff meetings,” he said.

But Tablack said it was important to consolidate borrowing issues in one package to economize on legal and underwriting fees and to have the borrowing in place by Dec. 1 to repay noteholders from the prior year. “We have a debt payment due Dec. 1,” he added.

Tablack said borrowing money for the courthouse and administration building improvements would not obligate the commissioners to go forward with those projects, which include heating, ventilating, air conditioning and structural enhancements. “There is no commitment as to the expenditure of those funds,” he said.

To justify the $4 million in sales tax bond notes, Tablack added that the county suffered a $10 million loss when the half-percent sales tax failed in November 2004; and it began 2007 with its lowest general fund reserve in 20 years — just $1 million.

The general fund is the county’s main operating fund. General fund spending is about $50 million a year.

The voters reinstated the sales tax in May 2005, but Tablack noted the county had to borrow $7.3 million to pay its deputy sheriffs in the interim.

A federal court mandated full reopening of county jail facilities this year as part of the settlement of a lawsuit by jail inmates, who successfully claimed that overcrowding in the lockup violated their constitutional rights.

In September, the county’s main jail fully reopened, and its misdemeanor jail, which had been closed completely due to lack of funding, reopened.

“The general fund is still squeezed, appropriationwise, to keep the jail completely open,” Tablack said.

milliken@vindy.com