County recommends ’09 wage freezes

By Ed Runyan

Freezing some wages is preferable to layoffs, one county commissioner said.

WARREN — Though Trumbull County is on solid financial ground at this time, its revenues are likely to drop by 10 percent in 2009, Trumbull County Auditor Adrian Biviano says.

As a result, the county commissioners have recommended that two departments whose union contracts expire at the end of 2008 take wage freezes in 2009: the sheriff’s department and county 911 workers.

When Don Guarino, chief of operations for Sheriff Thomas Altiere presented the department’s budget proposal to county commissioners, he said it assumed no pay increase for its management and union workers, he said.

It did contain a request for $2.2 million more than it has spent in 2008, however. The department is asking for $11.5 million, which is nearly 24 percent more than its 2008 expenditures of $9.3 million.

Guarino said some of the increase is due to five corrections officers being added to the jail staff this year and three employees being added to the road patrol and administrative areas.

The corrections officers were needed to meet jail standards, and the three other employees were added to sex-offender registration and notification, road patrol and the civil office, which serve court documents and other legal papers.

Last year’s sheriff’s budget was $8,631,581, up 3 percent over its 2006 amount. The sheriff’s budget, which includes deputies and the jail, made up 20 percent of the county’s $42.5 million 2008 budget.

Biviano said the county’s sales tax collections so far this year are about equal to 2007 collections, but they are always three months behind.

When income tax collections for the last three months of the year come in, they are likely to be lower than 2007, as a result of the current economic slump, Biviano said.

County officials will know the level of December income tax receipts in March, Biviano noted, which is about the time the 2009 budget will be finalized.

He is estimating receipts will be down about 10 percent for the year, but because the county is operating with a financial cushion, the county budget is likely to grow from the 2008 figure of $42.5 to around $45 or $46 million in 2009. So far in 2008, the county has spent about $42 million, Biviano said.

Commissioner Frank Fuda said the commissioners office had suggested the 2009 wage freeze to the sheriff’s department and county 911 because they are the two departments whose union contracts expire at the end of this year.

“We’re uncertain about the economy, so we’re recommending wage freezes right now,” Fuda said.

“We want to keep all of the employees in the county, and the only way to do that is to watch the spending,” he said.

Fuda said he hopes that President-elect Barack Obama and a new economic development office being created through the Western Reserve Port Authority will help the county overcome the current economic crisis before commissioners approve their 2010 budget.

Fuda said the county has taken steps to save money wherever it can, such as eliminating wasteful water charges in the county jail and finding electrical billing mistakes such as the one discovered at the county-owned Stone Building in 2007.

Dr. Humphrey Germaniuk, the county’s chief forensic pathologist, will save the county over $100,000 in 2009, Fuda noted, because he will be serving as both coroner and chief forensic pathologist when he assumes the position of coroner next month.

runyan@vindy.com