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Shifted costs enable court to lower its funding request
YOUNGSTOWN — The general division of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court is requesting $2,290,013 from the county’s general fund for 2010, compared with the $2,405,194 it expects to spend from that fund this year.
The decrease was made possible by shifting certain costs from the general fund to the court’s special-projects funds, said Judge John M. Durkin, administrative judge. The special-projects funds are derived from court filing fees.
Among the shifted costs are the salary of a current assignment clerk, community-corrections programs provided to the court, and fees for witnesses and transcripts, the judge said.
Common pleas court employees, who are paid less than their Youngstown Municipal Court counterparts, have not had any pay increases since 2006, and none is planned next year, he said during a Thursday budget hearing before the county commissioners.
Judge Durkin said he believes general-division common pleas court employees are “very underpaid for the work they do.”
The commissioners initially allocated $2.1 million from the general fund to the court’s general division for 2009, but the division’s five judges signed an order demanding $2.4 million. The general-division judges handle major criminal and civil cases.
The county made up the difference by taking unused Workers’ Compensation money from the general-administration fund contained within the general fund.
Commissioners John A. McNally IV and Anthony T. Traficanti called for court employees to begin paying 10 percent of their health-insurance premiums instead of the current 5 percent.
As they promote renewal on the May ballot of the county’s half-percent sales tax, which was defeated last month, it’s important for the commissioners to be able to tell the voters that all county employees pay 10 percent, McNally said.
“The 10 percent issue is not strictly about money” but also “a perception in the community” that government needs to better understand the high cost of health insurance, he said.
“I’d certainly appreciate it if the courts would come on, just in fairness, to pay a 10 percent co-pay” as the commissioners do, Traficanti said.
Judge Durkin said the annual savings would be a mere $20,000 if court employees went to 10 percent. He added that the five general-division judges have not agreed on increasing the co-pay to 10 percent, but they could revisit that issue.
County Administrator George J. Tablack said the common pleas court workers would be setting an example for other county employees if they paid 10 percent.
Tablack said 2009 revenues to the county’s general fund through Nov. 30 are only about $53 million, compared with about $61 million last year at that time, for a loss of about 15 percent. Revenues from the county’s two half-percent sales taxes, which go to the general fund, are running 7 percent below the $28.5 million collected last year, he added.
In other action, the commissioners set hearings, which also were billed as town-hall meetings, on the sales-tax renewal for 6:30 p.m. Jan. 4 at McMahon Hall at the Mill Creek MetroParks Farm in Canfield and 6:30 p.m. Jan. 11 at the Covelli Centre in downtown Youngstown.
Before a capacity crowd, the commissioners presented plaques in honor and memory of Youngstown Police Capts. Kenneth Centorame and Robert Kane, who died this fall, to surviving family members.
“Those two guys were pillars of the police community in this Valley,” said Robert E. Bush Jr., the county’s chief criminal prosecutor and a former Youngstown law director and police chief.
The commissioners also converted two county roads to township roads: Brookwood Road, which is in a residential area of Boardman, and Quarry Road, which Poland Township already has been maintaining.
milliken@vindy.com